Community is what being a christian means to me....
People argue over laws, denominations, dates and symbolism...but my journey has shown me that the thing that really matters is community. God has made us to be relationship people and the greatest commandment He gave was to 'love one another'
Ive always felt that community could be seen more among non-christians than christians. There seemed to be more fun, more togetherness more understanding between one another.
This doesnt make sense tho, surely a God centred group of people should reflect community more. ...The answer is yes they should (they don't always but they should) because as Christians they/we have something special - Forgiveness and Selflessness. We are naturally selfish people, infact I will openly admit i am extremely selfish, but surely we have been forgiven so much by God that we must aim towards selflessness ..towards forgiving and putting others needs first.
Forgive me if I am rambling, but so many examples recently have shown me that we don't put others before ourselves and how therefore can we expect to have community.
We often hear about the Amish community, they share their possessions and look after each other..basically they show love to one another.
I recently read Romans 12
We must be devoted to one another in brotherly love...Honour one another above yourselves........Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality, live at peace with one another and do not take revenge.
This is a topic im pretty passionate about and so I hope to expand on it in other blogs (if I can get my ass into gear that is!) but for now I have broken community into 3 layers
1 Immediate Community
An example of this would be my house mates. Two amazing girls full of inner beauty (and outter!) who encourage me and who I try to encourage back. We can be truthful with each other and yet as christians we are made stronger by being in each other's presence. We can have a real laugh but also get past the general chit chat and go deep in our conversations. We all need this immediate community.
2 Wider Community
The people we meet every day..do we feel their pain? I walked past a girl last week and her face was covered in burns, it brought tears to my eyes. This sounds awful, but I was actually glad, because for once I felt someones pain. The scars were such an outward sign of what she had been through. We shouldnt need the scars, however, we need to be able to feel the pain of others as if it was our own pain, we need to care! we need to want to make a difference, to help. This is what community is!
In the song 'Indiscriminate Act of Kindness' (Voy Fance) A man takes a stranger into his home and gives her his bed while he sleeps on the sofa. The next day he says 'I just did what was right'
Do we 'do what is right' - it wont make us famous, it might not evenstand out, but as christians we are called to love and look after each other.
3 World Community
Surely community is about unity, surely it is about every child having an opportunity to live. Surely it is wrong for one person to have so much and another to have nothing.
An what about war...well thats something I shall have to think about
I will leave it there, sorry this has been a little heavy, this blog has been more challenging for me than I would care to say
ok, extremely cheesey title, but also very true. Im not exactly sure what I brought to India, but i guess in a selfish way I took a lot from it....and im not just talking about the 10 pairs of shoes i carried home in my suitcase.
1, Ive got up everyday and thought about the three year old premature baby who lay on a hard floor and seemd to have received very little medical treatment. Unfortunately I can't say ive curtailed all my spending since I came back, but I have thought about how my money could help somewhere else.
2, Ive thought about the simple life, people who don't have lots of materialism, who don't have the pressures of making lots of money and working in a big city....but they have joy! it reminds me that 'joy is not in things, it is in us!'I have been more aware of how blessed I am- with friends, family and people who want to share their experiences with me and to hear about mine. .....that is what matters....that is community.
when Bono was speaking about women in Africa, he said "when it comes to the time to write the history of this, it will be their names that will be important, not mine"
On the final day we had a service with the whole community. We had worked with 3 different families and each family took it in turn to thank us. One man, who we called George, got up in front of the crowd. He was so grateful but he didnt use big flowery words, he quietly said thankyou and his eyes said it all. George was the father of the premature baby, he was a hard worker, and whilst he hadnt worked on his new house in 5 months, habitat gave him the encouragement to get back into it. On the morning of the commissioning service George was working away at his house, he put a clean shirt over his dirty t-shirt to say his thanks to us, but it wasnt long before he was back to the dirty t-shirt and getting on with his house. On that final day we arrived on site in our good clothes, nice and clean for the farewell service, but i hope that my desire will always be to get my hands dirty, put on my old clothes and help others out.
Love never fails!
