"All who believed were together and had all things in common; They would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved."
- Acts 2:44-47The first facet of church I want to look at is one that seems to have become a wonderful Christian buzzword: community.
I've been learning quite a bit lately about the church as community from an exegetical class I'm in right now on Acts. The above text is in one of many of Luke's (Acts' author) "summary statements." Such statements were used to demonstrate what was normative among the followers of "the way." They give us a glimpse into how things were among the early church. On top of that, I recently learned that there is a pattern in Luke-Acts where Jesus (and later, Jesus' followers) move from the synagogue to people's houses in sharing the word of God (Luke 4, 13-14; Acts 10, 16, 18). The early church met (and ate) not in official/institutional facilities, but in houses, and this had all sorts of implications for community, sharing, hospitality, leveling of status, etc.
Now I'm not going to say the right way to do church is with house churches (though it is a legitimate possibility), but I do think this calls into question the way we "do church" and the way we think about community. The early church was spending time in one another's homes, breaking bread together and praying. And please notice this: they weren't just being generous, they actually considered their possessions to be the community's common property. That was one result of God's pouring out the Spirit on God's people, and our calling is to "live into" this reality...to somehow embody it.
Rubber meets the Road: Thinking about a Church Plant
In our context, I think our wealth, individualistic tendencies and notions of personal property make this difficult. I have a friend who puts it this way: "You can be wealthy and have privacy, or you can be poor and have community." It's just tough be wealthy and have community. So perhaps those of us who have enough to live with plenty of privacy should consider making some adjustments for the sake of community. And from my experiences, I'm not sure such community - the kind with shared meals, shared lives and shared worship - can really happen apart from close proximity.
For our church plant, this has had challenging implications. Maria and I have thought/talked about this quite a bit, and our conclusion has been that for this type of community, we can't make it happen by fitting it into our normal lives. We'll have to reorient our lives in order to make it happen. As a result, we've told the small handful of people who are thinking about coming with us that we want them to live (in the least) within walking distance of one another. Best case scenario (our goal): we all live in an apartment complex together. Think about it; what if a bunch of Christians moved into an area and started living out the Gospel around their neighbors - sharing possessions, giving, caring, loving, suppporint...shining light. What if, instead of inviting them the church, we brought ourselves to them in really tangible ways?
I guess the question for us all might be: How can we better embody the type of community that is normative in places like Acts 2?
Oh, and I'll tree to keep the next posts a little shorter!
2 comments:
Get excited...I'm going to comment. One thing you said kind of struck me...and maybe I'm reading it wrong...and I know that you aren't saying neccessarily that it's impossible to be wealthy and have community but I know it may seem hard to find good examples of that. However, I have found that in the YoungLife ministry in a huge way recently. In every YL area, you have 3 distinct groupings of people-- the committee, the staff, and the leaders. In our area, the committee happens to be comprised of quite a few very wealthy people. Us leaders, on the other hand, are definitely not wealthy...yet between the leaders and committee there is true community. Tuesdays, we come together for prayer...some committee members, some leaders, and the staff (really whoever can) and we all pray for our kids and our lives and the ministry together. Following prayer we always go out to lunch. At lunch, leaders never pay...in fact, we have given up even trying...the committee members always pick up our tabs (before we can even see them!). Not only that, but they also have us over for dinners and we have leader/committee luncheons some Sundays. Sometimes we babysit their children and do other things for them. I think it helps that we are all focused on one thing--- YL is our bond...but I just wanted to share that because I think in many ways you really can have true community even between the wealthy and the "can barely afford to eat".
Good thoughts, I think you're kind of illustrating the point. Wealthy folks can experience community, but our wealth doesn't exactly incline us towards community. I tend to think wealth pushes us towards more privatization. And your example is demonstrating a way in which the church is pulling people into community where they otherwise may not experience it. My point isn't that it's impossible to be wealthy and have community. I'm saying it takes a certain amount of intentionality.
Make sense?
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