What I love about community and what I love about family is the opportunity you have to sit down over a cup of a beverage of your choice and be real with each other.
I remember going through a tough stage in Stoke-on-Trent and my dear friend Andy opened his home up to me. Indeed it was The Hub where God would do business with me and with us and whether it was just us two or a few of us in there. The relevant FIFA game might be on as the game of choice, or whatever. In the midst of it all, we would talk about real life issues.
Being in his home, there was no need to put on airs and graces and slip into a suit of respectability so as to hide the pains and issues going on inside. Whilst not being about exposure for the sake of exposure, the room was given for vulnerability through transparency. It was on occasions like this that church meant the world to me and I got a glimpse at church the way Jesus intended it.
It was something refreshing and new to me. Not that I’d never been in good conversations before with other Christians or anything. It’s just that I was only too aware of that sad gap between the person that went to the church service in whatever was deemed appropriate to enter in the ‘holy sanctuary’, and the person in the comfort of their own home who wasn’t bothered about wearing a tie or the latest in fashion.
I mention that because I think it is sad that a place where we gather to encourage each other and build each other in faith in Christ is not the place where we can be vulnerable or transparent. When I say that, I don’t mean you’re not allowed to, I mean there’s no room and space to. Typical church services are either too large in number, too impersonal in nature and too structured with the parts that we’re used to that tick boxes, but doesn’t reflect the heart of God for His people.
So it’s not unusual (as the prophet Tom Jones would put it), to see a dynamic sister leading a youth group session on relationships and praying an awesome prayer and having the members of that youth group think she’s the real deal. Only for them to not know that she’s struggling with getting a job and is depressed because it appears as though God isn’t hearing her prayers about other key issues of life. But because of the set-up and her desire to be true to the young people, she cannot afford to be seen to be weak or vulnerable.
Where else can she go? The big ol’ church service? Oh she might go up when the call is made for people to come forward for prayer – but people might think she’s got serious issues that way if she keeps coming forward. The prayer meeting? Nah, we’re here to pray – don’t want to ruin the flow by actually meeting the emotional needs of the people praying!
So we’re left with that seeming different faces of the Christian – the stout prayer warrior, spiritually sound person who can speak the word over people’s lives in public and the fearful, doubting, depressed and frustrated person in private There is seemingly no communal valve through which to channel her issues.
And yet to me that appears to be part of the point of the Christian community – it is meant to have those valves and part of that is the meeting where it’s not measured by performance, but by how effective the Spirit has revealed Jesus to us who cares about our every day struggles and meets us there among brothers and sisters. Loving the brother I can see, surely has to be about that level of honesty, transparency, vulnerability, care and determination to see growth in the character of Christ.
I do miss those days with Andy in the Hub and I know days like that may not ever happen again just because of the place I was at and the stunning people I came across. I know, though, that the same community spirit will be experienced in that community that I’m committed to pursuing. I know that the identity of being a whole person because of following the Prince of Peace will be a reality not based on the individual pursuit, but on that following of Jesus in the context of Christian community. A community that means business for people and not just about accepting going through the motions, but meeting the needs that we see among our own.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
dmcd
Life With CD 