Our Instinctive Need For Community

In the mid-1800’s in our country the cry was “Go west young man!” At that time there was still so much unexplored and unsettled territory. The independent, self-reliant American spirit helped fuel the taming of our great homeland.

In our time, through modernization and the advent of suburban sprawl, we Americans are growing increasingly closer to one another. Even though this reality is upon us, most people live as though they are oblivious to it. Because of our independent spirit, we fail to even know our closest neighbors in the subdivision! We Americans are poor at true community. In Europe, Africa, and Latin America people have long since been used to village life. Now that we can no longer “go west”, we must learn how to face one another and how to live together.

What an opportunity The Church has in our postmodern world to be a testimony to the true nature of community. The Church has its origins outside of space and time, before creation, when nothing existed but the Godhead. What we call The Trinity is God expressed in three Persons – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Godhead is essentially a three person community yet with complete oneness and preferring of the other. There is giving, receiving, sharing, loving, and freedom within the village of The Three. The Godhead had a passion to extend its community outside the invisible, heavenly realms and took counsel with itself. God had a purpose, then a plan and then an act of His will to create - to create a visible expression that would fulfill and satisfy that intention.

When Christ was living on the earth in bodily form he was still a part of the Godhead fellowship. Hidden within His insides were the means of extending that fellowship. When Christ called the twelve to follow, live, and learn, the divine Village had its first extension. They slept where he slept. They ate and drank with Him. They traveled with Him. They were in attendance at all of His meetings, encounters, and messages. They assisted Him. They had private instruction times with Him. They grew to love and depend on Him. He was the reason why they were together. He was the reason for their brotherhood. They had been included in the fellowship of the Godhead.

On the day of Pentecost, after Christ had risen and ascended, that Divine community was extended once more. Upon believing Peter’s message and being baptized, three thousand men (that didn’t include their wives and children) were added to the heavenly colony. If you read the passage in Acts 2:42-47 you find out what happened next. They all began to respond to the life of God that was now within them and they instinctively started to function like a community. The (zoe) uncreated life of God was deposited in each member as they believed on the Lord Jesus. They then enjoyed (koinonia) fellowship because they all shared the same life in common. Because community is a corporate expression, they became the (ekklesia) or a shared life tribe. When they gathered together as a body they expressed and made visible the Lord Jesus Christ who was their head. The twelve apostles spent seven or eight years working with the church in Jerusalem (which was believed to be in the number of tens of thousands – no wonder it took twelve to work with that many!) imparting the dynamics of the divine, shared life community. It wasn’t until after that seven or eight years that we begin to see new workers emerge (Philip, Stephen, etc.), public evangelism, and the ekklesia spreading into Judea, Samaria, and surrounding areas. That’s a lesson for the modern Church! That’s why the incubation and foundational stage is so crucial – where only gathering together under Christ our Head is the only pursuit. Only such an atmosphere can produce the quality of body life and work that the Lord is after.

Later on, chiefly through the ministry of Paul of Tarsus, the ekklesia of Jesus Christ spread all over the Gentile world and the Roman Empire. At a time and place in human history when living conditions were at an all time low, the Divine Family was piercing the dark places with glorious light. Wherever local bodies of believers were creeping up (usually in the urban cities), righteousness, peace, and joy was reigning! Slaves, freemen, merchants, soldiers, tradesmen, farmers, sailors, rich , poor, runaways, orphans, outcasts, male, female, young, old - Jews and Gentiles alike - were all gathering together as one community. The community of the one New Man! Never before had the citizens of the Roman world ever seen anything like it before. And they wouldn’t because it wasn’t of the earth. It was a heavenly colony - the colony of Jesus Christ!

Throughout church history there have been groups such as the Bogamils, Waldenses, Anabaptists, Plymouth Brethren, The Little Flock, and into the Lord's recovery and restoration today, that have met outiside the trappings of institutional church walls. In doing so, as they have touched the Lord's life together, a wonderful by-product resulted: shared life community sprang up! As believers discover the nature of their Lord they are introduced to the communal aspect of that nature.

Even observing natural man and society gives us insight into the importance of community. Man was created to be a relational being. He likes to be where the action is. He likes to be around those that are like-minded. He gets lonely if he is by himself for too long. He likes to be in the company of those he is sharing life with. Inwardly we have a nature that desires to interact with our fellow creatures. That is also why our bitterness is so deep if our relationships malfunction and disappoint. Teenagers are constantly measuring themselves by what they see their peers doing. Why do so many people live in urban/big city areas? Because that is where the largest expressions of culture reside. Corporate humanity portrays an image. It is the wrong image – it reflects fallen man and at root, a satanic influence. It has essentially built a house for self to be expressed, a place where the nature of God’s enemy is made visible. It is an image nonetheless and an example of what is possible for the church if she will unify corporately and express the culture of her Lord. (Please excuse the stream of consciousness style of this paragraph!)

In closing, I have a challenge for the modern Church. Are our services and programs conducive for community life? Are they reflective of the relational nature of the Godhead? Why do we choose to use corporate America (business), civil government, and the military as our models for structure and leadership in the church? We are quite vocal about being “Biblical” but how do those examples jive with the NT and the first-century story? Jesus taught, “It is not so among you.”, when he compared the request of the disciples to sit at his right hand with the attitudes prevalent in the places of authority in the Gentile world. The Church is more likened to a tribe or village than the above mentioned institutions. When you get together with your natural family, do you all meet at a hospital or a public school auditorium? Of course not, most likely you gather at a home (the living room and kitchen) or a place of recreation. Why does the Family of God get treated so differently? It’s high time that we woke up to the revelation that the Church is something outside of culture – it is a counter-culture, the culture of Jesus Christ. Tragically, the modern church exists in a state of being one with (or a product of) culture. It is virtually indistinguishable from society (the world system). A chief characteristic (being set apart) The Church is called to display.

May the Lord provide grace and may His people be willing to return to more primitive and organic community life. May this move be preceded by a haunting vision of how deep the Fall runs in man and in our world – the distinctions, the divisions, and the distractions. Then, may we be blinded by the glory and all sufficiency of Jesus Christ and how God is turning the tide in this visible realm through the one New Man and the New Creation. Let the universal oneness of Christ and His Body increase visibly in local tribes all over this postmodern world.


- Jon K. Slusser