13 Oct 2011
What is Christian community?
It’s so nice to be home.
I’m taking it a bit easy today.. Didn’t get heaps of sleep last night as I’m adjusting back to the Aussie timezone.
It’s a beautiful day here in Poatina, brilliant blue sky and the plants all have that look about them they seem to get in early spring just before they take off and grow rapidly.
Poatina is a unique community. It is a Christian community that is designed to be a model of how any community could care for people (especially young people) who need an extra hand.
As I indicated in previous posts, it has been a challenging couple of years in Poatina for a lot of reasons. In a lot of ways I have felt the need to try to hang on in order to help the community get through this patch. I think that’s why it has been so refreshing and confronting for me to read Bonhoeffer’s “Life Together”.
Bonhoeffer manages to reframe what Christian community is meant to be by going back to the basics, which are easy to lose sight of.
In our focus on caring for people, in our focus on building community, there is one fundamental, which I have to admit to losing sight of from time to time.
Bonhoeffer writes:
Christian community means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. There is no Christian community that is more than this, and none that is less than this. Whether it be a brief, single encounter or the daily community of many years, Christian community is soley this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.
He later points out:
…. without Christ we would not know other Christians around us; nor could we approach them. The way to them is blocked by one’s own ego. Christ opened up the way to God and one another. Now Christians can live with each other. Now Christians can live with each other in peace; they can love and serve one another; they can become one. But they can continue to do so only through Jesus Christ. Only in Jesus Christ are we one; only through him are we bound together. He remains the one and only mediator throughout eternity.
I think I have to face the fact that sometimes I have been focussed on building community or helping people instead of loving Jesus.
The quote from Mother Theresa has stayed with me since I first found it:
Some people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus.
I find this so helpful, Matt, and both exciting and confronting! Feel I should have the first Bonhoeffer quote on a bracelet so I am constantly reminded!
Anne Nanscawen
October 13th, 2011 at 10:58 pmpermalink
I see what you are saying, i don’t disagree but i also think one of the ideas of community emphasizes a hands on approach. I just came from reading this article and i think you would agree.
http://tinyurl.com/3gld7gb
community here is seen in acts 4.
what do you think whenever you read from that article??
john
John
October 14th, 2011 at 2:22 pmpermalink
I guess as someone who lives in an intentional Christian community I can tend to be so hands on I lose touch with the bigger purpose of Christian community, which is why I find Bonhoeffer helpful. I imagine for those not in such an intentional community the need would be the other way around.
Matt Garvin
October 14th, 2011 at 10:05 pmpermalink