In Community

At our church this past Sunday I introduced worship with the following message. I’m posting it hoping it might bring some light on how Jesus is shaping our community, teaching us how to inhabit community, and go out from community. Here goes:

 I want to throw out some thoughts on a “worshiping community”. Worship is huge. And it includes coming together as community to recalibrate around Jesus. To me it’s equivalent to an event- a transforming God encounter. As I said last week, I have an increasingly greater appreciation for community.  I also mentioned a kind of early intuition that 2010 was going to be a radical year for Dwell Missional Church.  I believe the genuine “ethos” or life force of this community, the timely and necessary distinction this community brings to the mix, will continue to unfold and fill out more of its sphere of influence. And all of it flowing out from relationship with Jesus under the influence of His grace. Here is where Jesus is shaping community.  How incredible is it that the church, unleashed as community, is the means of grace by which God chooses to express Himself? (Eph.3:10). I mean, even after you leave a  community gathering, there is this profound, unbreakable, and mysterious continuity of it by which Christ is present. (Eph.5:32). Dwell then becomes community in the greater community; a community testifying not of itself but as the Message Bible says, “opening up our lives to others, prompting people to open up to God…”.

 As we approach 2010, I believe greater understanding is coming to the way by which we inhabit community and move out from it; that is, in the way of living in and out from the reality of what God is forming “…Which is His body…”  I love the body metaphor because with it you get a picture of this radical, living, anatomical connectedness. Though sometimes messy, there is this relational supply between the parts. It’s this uncanny interaction between strengths and weaknesses. It’s not the externalized or mandated “love of the brethren” stuff of religion, but the outflow of relationship with God that in some way actually accomplishes the work of grace.

As I said awhile back, we come together as community in worship to “reboot” – getting our “software” in sync with the “hardware” of God’s Word and in fellowship with one another. This re-orientation around Jesus changes everything and empowers our witness. Why? Because “in Him are all the treasures of wisdom and all the riches of spiritual knowledge”.

Lastly, Paul tells us,“Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it” and that we “are parts of His body-of His flesh and of His bones”. I don’t want to “time-share” in that, where I retreat now and then when life is getting a bit hectic. No, I want to live in that “body” reality, drenched in the Gospel, under His divine influence. See, in community, the grace Jesus brings to His followers and what they become by it is incredible! Between the Son of God “made flesh” and His Church, there is, again, this profound, unbreakable and mysterious connection by which He is present. This presence of Jesus (not the presence of “presence”) is the reason for our joy. What better reason to gather in community and worship Him as community?