Transcript CS 654 Spiritual Formation in Congregations Weekend #2 Community – What is it?   Being together in Christ  Sharing a common life.

CS 654 Spiritual Formation in Congregations
Weekend #2
Community – What is it?

 Being together in Christ
 Sharing a common life in Jesus
 Having a mutual interest in each other’s maturity,
i.e., the ministry of reciprocity (as the community
contributes to my growth, I contribute to its growth
corporately and to the growth of individual
members of the community)
 Journeying together toward Christ
 Reaching a sacred place of vulnerability and
authenticity
Community – How does it function?

Confirmation
Provides a place Affirms when
to develop one’s the developing
identity to
identity is
discover how to congruent with
serve within the the values of the
kingdom
community
Confirms gifts
and talents

Contradiction
Creates
opportunities to be
Acts as an “agent of
confronted with the
dissonance” that
reality of one’s
causes members to
direction, which may
rethink the direction
be counterproductive
of their identities
to his or her
maturing
Consists of people
who have the
integrity to come
clean, with the
confidence that
brokenness will not
end a relationship

Continuity
Develops a story
and a character
that gives it the
right both to
confirm and to
contradict
Provides a story
into which
participants can
fold their stories
for a sense of
stability
Recognizes the
same Spirit at work
within believing
communities as he
was within biblical
cultures
Biblical Community

Fractured
in the Fall
Realized
in the
New
Testament
Kept alive
in the Old
Testament
Renewed
by Jesus
Biblical Community

 Christian community is the body of Christ
expressing the life and message of Christ to build up
one another and redeem the world for God’s glory.
 Read from Donahue.
 What is your definition?
 It is important to know your definition of biblical
community in order to develop a training program
for small group leaders.
Small Group Firestarter #1

 Divide into 2 groups of 3.
 Consider the following questions together:




Where did you live between ages 7 and 12?
How was your home heated then?
Who was the center of human warmth in your family?
When, if ever, did God become more than a mere
word to you?
Small Group Firestarter #2

 Each individual should select one of the “one
anothers” from Gorman 40-41
 Go to the library and do some research on the
accompanying reference, noting insights (15
minutes)
 Meet with assigned small group and share insights
discovered (10 minutes)
 Draw conclusions together regarding how the “one
anothers” reveal biblical community that could be
practiced in our culture today (10 minutes)
Small Group Firestarter #3

 Taking into account all we’ve discussed tonight, how
could the intentional development of biblical
community be counter-cultural?
 Brainstorm the potential impact of counter-cultural
community within the context of your church, your
family, and perhaps beyond.
 Prepare to report your findings to the class.
Community in the Congregation

 How do people commonly view the church?
 Centered in a building
 Represented by a pastor, priest, or minister
 Made up of people who share a common faith
 The role of leadership:
 Look carefully at the patterns and practices of church
life
 Unexamined presuppositions or assumptions can hide
the roots of conflict and confusion even as the church
experiences renewal and growth – Roberta Hestenes
Two perspectives for church life

 Institutional
 Looks at the formal power and organizational
structure of the church
 Issues of power and authority emerge
 Considers the governing board, the pastor and staff,
the committee structure, and the people who are active
in the programs
 Key questions are:
 Can we get them involved in helping the program?
 Are enough people coming to the program?
Two perspectives for church life

 Relational
 Looks at the relationships and interpersonal
connections in the church
 Considers the networks within the congregation
 Issues concern regarding whether a sense of belonging
exists
 Focuses on the groups of people in the congregation—
those who meet within the church building and those
who meet elsewhere
 Committees become one form of congregational
relational groups
The major difficulty

 The major difficulty occurs when a new leader with
relational, community-building eyes unwisely develops
relational programs and emphases to the neglect of
people who are more programmatically or institutionally
oriented
 Doing this risks ending up with two congregations with
contradictory goals
 The challenge is to work with both types—to draw
relational people into mission and institutional people
into situations where they are cared for—to work toward
community
 --Roberta Hestenes
Transformed committees

 Can be a meeting place for both relationally and
programmatically oriented church people when
committees know how to function as communities
 Even committees can be structured and operated in a
way that remembers one of the central commands of
Jesus—to love one another
Things to consider

 Discerning spirituality
 Spiritually gifted for the task
 Clear job descriptions
 Sense of calling
 Description of available training
 Annual retreats
 Sharing reflection questions and stories
Talk community

 Avoid giving singular meanings to plural passages
in the Scriptures
 Include sermon illustrations that reflect the
communal life of the church
 Consider letting people in to the deeper parts of our
lives because community demands it
 Understand the church as a system
 Encourage spiritual formation through Bible study
Starbucks found it

Create
community.
Make a
difference in
someone’s day
No more front porches

The American front porch further
represented the ideal of
community in America. For the
front porch existed as a zone
between the public and the
private, an area that could be
shared between the sanctity of
the home and the community
outside. It was an area where
interaction with the community
could take place – Scott Cook
Firestarter #4

 Sketch your “Journey of Transformation” on a sheet
of paper.
 Where did a person or persons play a major part in
your formation?
 How did this occur?
 Why are people today so lonely?
 Do you think people really want community? Do
you?
The answer is not pseudocommunity!

 Story-rap (198)
 What are the characteristics of pseudocommunity?
 Have you experienced any aspects of
pseudocommunity?
 How does true community compare?
 How do you see true community among the 12
disciples?
 What would God have you do to develop “realness”
in your community experience?
Community—don’t leave home without it

Community is inherent in being Christian
• Major part of the abundance in the abundant
life
• Community begins and ends in God—the
purpose is his, the power to actualize is his,
the resulting benefits are his.

Community is intrinsic to our evolving
Christlikeness
• The distinctiveness of the followers of Jesus must
include the godly treatment of one another
• “Sainthood is perfected in communion with
others, never apart from it” – Simon Chan

Community is God’s gift to his own,
now and forever
• Life in the Father’s household lasts forever
• Sharing in the marriage supper of the Lamb
will be the consummation of earthly
community