Elusive Authentic Community

Sam Hamstra | Apr 16, 2008

This past Sunday, 53 pioneers gathered on the campus of Trinity Christian College to pray and think about the emerging Living Hope Church, a suburban, multi-ethnic congregation in the Calvinist tradition with dreams of embodying four specific goals: passionate worship, relevant teaching, authentic community, and dynamic partnership with God.

Each one of those goals holds its own set of challenges. In the coming weeks, we will look at each one of them. Last Sunday we wrestled with authentic community, a phrase that describes a specific kind of fellowship between followers of Jesus in a local setting. It refers to a community whose interpersonal relationships, in thought, word and deed, are shaped by God's Word and Spirit.

During part of our time together last Sunday, we broke into groups of 6-8 to share times when we had been affirmed by others. We then read together the long list of "one another" passages in the New Testament letters (about 30 specific admonitions). That list included phrases like "be devoted to one another, encourage one another, honor one another, love one another, greet one another with a holy kiss."

The reading of Scripture affirmed God's priority for a counter-cultural fellowship among those who follow Jesus. It also specified the look of authentic community by calling Christ followers to relationships of affirmation and encouragement, hospitality and grace, love and devotion, within a context of mutual accountability. Finally, the Scripture reading convicted us for, more than we care to admit, we who profess to follow Jesus slide into patterns of shame and blame, pride and exclusiveness, aloofness and condescension. For that reason, authentic community remains elusive, except for the grace of God.

But let's think a little bit more about the significance of authentic community. Look at it this way. We can hop from church to church for passionate worship. We can enjoy relevant teaching through books, radio, and television. We can experience dynamic partnership with God through any number of para-church or civic agencies. In other words, we can find and enjoy passionate worship, relevant teaching, and dynamic partnership without being part of an authentic community. That may sound fine and good, especially if you have been burned or hurt by your church in the past.

But, and here's the rub, without authentic community, the church really has nothing distintive to offer the world. Furthermore, without it, the church fails to embody its identity as the church of Christ. Truth be told: every congregation fails once in a while in that regard, but some, it seems, fail continously and have no desire to change. Perhaps that, more than anything else, explains both the large number of churched children who have left the congregations of their youth and the growing number of unchurched Christians in America.

Prayer BlocksThe question remains: How do we experience authentic community? I don't have the full answer to that question, but I think the Lord has made clear a few steps. First, we affirm that authentic community, first and foremost, represents God's gift to us. In particular, we affirm authentic community as a fruit of the Holy Spirit. I draw this conclusion from the story of the first church in Jerusalem whose authentic community, as described in Acts 2:42-47, followed by their reception of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Second, we admit that we tend to hinder the reception of God's gift of authentic community. Just as Adam and Eve severed fellowship with God through sins like pride and selfishness, we hinder community with others. Third, we acknowledge that God expects us to cooperate with His Spirit so that He might create authentic community in and through us. He reveals that expectation through the "one another" passages in Scripture, as well as similar admonitions.

Having said that, we are left with prayer. In the end, the way to authentic community is humble dependence of God. So, with the hope that God is able to do far more than we ask or imagine, by His power at work within us, let us pray! Let us offer prayers of thanks for God's gift of the Holy Spirit. Let us offer prayers of confession and acknowledge our tendency to hinder, rather than foster community. Let us offer prayers of petition by which we beg God to give us what only He can give - authentic community like that shaped by His Word and Spirit.


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