Community and the Church...one and the same?

A post over at NinjaNun's blog has us talking about what Church is supposed to be. So, go read the comments if you please, and I thought I'd weigh in on my ideas about the role of community in the church.

A church that is built around community..with each other, the world, and God, is fulfilling the highest calling of what a church is.

The new testament word for church, Latin ecclesia, from Greek ekklesia had an original meaning of "assembly, council", literally "convocation", so church is simply an assembly of believers..a community as such. Where God is a present and participating member of that community.

In fact, the concept of community, envelops the church in the Bible. First, God is a God of community. He is a community of three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, communally exisisting as one. Next, God describes Himself as being in relationship (the central concept to community) with the Church, as a husband is to a wife.

Jesus focused his ministry on those marginalized by the community. The sick, the lame, women, minorities, and the like. He seemed to constantly work to restore them to the community around them. He challenged the unjust structures of his greater community.

And yes, lots of places do acts of charity, and lots of other groups have community. But the focus of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, and Father God, through the scriptures, is one of justice and community with God...and therefore the church is a special community, a community of God's grace. A God of Truth. So our church communities do possess a higher calling than charity and a little social time.

We are called to refine one another. To be people who can speak truth...scary, ugly, beautiful truth into the lives of one another. A process that can only be effective and take place in loving relationship with God and one another. 'Cause people seem only to not bugger it up with a big helping of the Holy Spirit, God with us.

And just because we see glimpses of God's common grace in acts of charity and places of community that are not the church, that does not denigrate the role of the church as both a place of charity (I'd rather say Justice.) and community. Rather, we should model community so well and with so much grace that people come running to God.

Because, in what I've seen in my work as a therapist, most people feel the most pain from being rejected or less than unconditionally loved by someone in a community that is important to them.

We are to be models, to our greatest capabilities through sanctification, of God's grace to our communities to bring them back to a place so that they can enter into community with God and with other believers.