If you don’t know already, I’m leaving for MTSU on Friday.  These past few day’s have been pretty hectic.  Goodbye’s aren’t easy.  I’ve gotten a big taste of that.  It tastes bad, btw.

So, tonight was my last night at church.  It crushed me, too.  My church is this amazing community that is always there and never fails for me.  I’ve come to realize that it’s one of the most important parts of my life.  Now I have to let it go.  Well, the people.  The church will always be a part of my life.  Still, It’s tough.  Really tough.

Tonight we continued talking about community.  It’s really started to get me thinking though.

Community is a big deal.  Like, it really needs to happen.  Sure, you can get through life without it, but you miss all of the good stuff.  All of the important stuff.

Our pastor has been talking about “the space between” a lot over the past few weeks.  It’s the space in a persons life between their salvation and the promise of eternal life.  There’s just all this extra time that we’ve been handed.  Yes, if you’re a Christian you’re promised eternal life, but there’s just way to much at stake with everyone else to be wasting that time in between being average and doing nothing.

Let’s see what Community means according to Dictionary.com

1. a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.

2. a locality inhabited by such a group.

3. a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists (usually prec. by the ): the business community; the community of scholars.

4. a group of associated nations sharing common interests or a common heritage: the community of Western Europe.

5. Ecclesiastical . a group of men or women leading a common life according to a rule.

6. Ecology . an assemblage of interacting populations occupying a given area.

7. joint possession, enjoyment, liability, etc.: community of property.

8. similar character; agreement; identity: community of interests.

9. the community, the public; society: the needs of the community.

A bunch of those come close to community but never really hit the nail on the head.  You know what they’re missing?  Trust.

You can’t have community without trust, it just doesn’t work.

Pete Wilson has a great way of putting it in his blog post Artificial Harmony.

…if you’ve surrounded yourself with community that won’t speak truth to you then you don’t really have community as much as you have a gathering of convenient relationships.

That’s about as real as it gets.  Truth is the piece that keeps community together.

Our church belives that true transformation comes from real, true community.  I totally agree with that.  You can’t grow by keeping everything supressed inside.  In a true community trust is so strong that there is no problem of judgment or secrets or all of those silly things.  It’s a place where you can be real and everyone can be real back to you.  Community is no new thing either.  It’s been around forever, literally.

Here’s an example:

42They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Acts 2:42-47 (NIV)

We as believers have been a part of community for forever and now is no time to stop.  Even Jesus surrounded himself with community.  He found himself with a bunch of guys who shared everything and traveled and lived together.  Shouldn’t we be like Jesus too?

As I was saying before, I’m leaving for college on Friday.  My prayer is that I can use the amazing opportunity for community that God has given me to it’s full potential.  I know there is so much to be learned over the course of the next few year’s and I hope I can share that time with other people.

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25Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Hebrews 10:25 (NIV)