05 Doing Life Together

A little while ago my daughter was engaged in an online discussion forum for her college studies. And it was about jargon and terminology and how in certain contexts we use certain words and phrases. As an example, she talked about how I would meet somebody for coffee for discipleship rather than, in everyday language, just meet with somebody for a conversation.

And then people were responding to that. And it was interesting, one person submitted a response, "Isn't it interesting how different churches use different words for the same events and the same things? For example, some churches talk about home groups, some talk about cell groups, and some talk about communities."

As soon as I read that response with the word community, I turned to my daughter, and we both looked at each other, and we said, "That's a JoshGenner." Because I don't know of any other church that uses the term "community". But then that begs the question, why do we use the word community?

Why We Use the Word Community

Do we just want to be different or awkward? Is it just a fancy name that we give to a Wednesday night meeting? No. We've got to understand our words shape our thinking, and our thinking shapes our behavior. When JoshGen was planted, one of the things in the hearts of Andrew and Emsie wasn't that we would have Wednesday night home groups, but that we would live together with a very real sense of love and community.

So, our get-togethers were called communities because those are the smaller building blocks of the church. They're the small family units. I think sometimes we lose sight of that.

And what happens is communities become what happens on a Wednesday night. It becomes a Bible study, for example, where a leader has the opportunity to tell everybody how much they know. Then it becomes a little Bible study group. That's not what community's supposed to be.

Neither is it supposed to be a replication of church every Wednesday, where we're going to get together, awkwardly worship for half an hour, regardless of how good our musicians are in the community. Then we're going to have a 40-minute preach, and then we're going to go home.

That isn't community. Now, if we're living together, then these things can happen. If we are living with a very real sense of family and community, with Jesus at the center of it, then of course, there should be times of worship. Of course there should be times of sharing around the Word of God.

Community as an Acts 2 Lifestyle

In fact, when we look at Acts 2:42-47, it's actually the description of what a lifestyle centered around Jesus looks like. But it's a devotion to teaching, a devotion to breaking bread. Having meals together, having communion together, fellowship, prayer, giving to one another, loving one another and meeting daily in each other's homes.

That is an important aspect of community, that community cannot be confined to two or three hours on one night of the week. As a community leader, what we're looking for is somebody who can encourage a sense of family. A sense of togetherness, a sense of belonging, where there is a desire among the people to meet with Jesus and meet with each other.

It should be that just about every day of the week, something is happening somewhere. I'm not talking about putting a burden on people and saying, "We're having a meeting every week." The term "meeting", in me, does not produce any sense of pleasure and excitement.

I don't want to go to meetings. I might want to encounter Jesus, I might want to hang out with my family. I might want to meet with my friends. I don't want to go to a meeting. We want that heart to come through.

Doing Life Together, Not Just Meetings

Community is about doing life together. Sometimes it's about having a "braai". You know what happens if you have a "braai" and Jesus is in the room? People begin to talk about Jesus. I have been in community times where people are fellowshipping and then as one guy's cooking the meat, in a corner somebody's sharing the life.

In another corner, somebody's praying for somebody. We're just seeing the life of Jesus spontaneously flowing out of people and through people. And community leaders are those that we want to help facilitate that. Now, I used to say that our community meetings shouldn't depend on Sundays for the life, and that's absolutely true.

Sunday Should Overflow from Community Life

When we get together on a Sunday, it's different parts of the family, different communities coming together to celebrate together. And if there has been the life of Jesus in our midweek times together, then that should overflow into Sundays. Sometimes it feels like Sundays are that moment where we give a shot in the arm to people to get them through the week.

And they just survive through the week until they get to Sunday again. And then you kind of have to rev people up until there's a certain amount of enthusiasm. And then they feel they have got their shot for the next week. No, it should be almost the reverse of that.

Where people are so filled with Jesus and so filled with an encouragement and having joined together with others that when we get together on a Sunday, there's an enthusiasm. There's an excitement. And there's an overflow of stories and contributions of what Jesus has been doing in lives through the week.

Why Community Matters in Hard Times

Not only that but, during the COVID lockdowns, we've seen that we're not even permitted some weeks to meet on a Sunday. And as we move into the future, and we don't know exactly what's going to happen. But there's a very real sense that persecution could hit and meeting together corporately could become harder and harder.

How much more important is it going to be that communities exist? Places where people know that they belong? The only reason we have a set meeting, say 7 o'clock on a Wednesday, is that can be a time where people know where to go where other people will be.

But it shouldn't be confined to that. And we need to encourage people. And we need to give people an example of what it means to live our lives every day with a sense of family with the people of God. People need a sense of belonging.

People Were Created for Connection

People were created for connection, both with God and with each other. And in a culture and in a world that is increasingly fragmented, hostile, and divorced from each other, and increasingly divided, what people need more than ever is a sense of family and a sense of community.

Scripture tells us that God puts the lonely into family. And communities are a way of doing that. We can talk in JoshGen about being dozens of congregations around the world, and that is wonderful. It's wonderful to see the growth. But what is the point of being this huge thing, if there isn't an intimacy and a place where people can feel known.

Where they're known by name. Where they're loved. Where they're taken care of. Where they're discipled and where they can encounter Jesus. That's the heart of community. That is what we want our community leaders to have in their own hearts, so that they can pass that on to others.

And build something of eternal value and where we see people grow closer to Jesus. Grow more like Jesus and reach out and see the lost saved. That is what community is.