Test lwcf_crd_mgz_essentialconnectionsample_pdf | Page 30

God’s Design
for Us:
Community
building
community
in your life:
• Get involved in
a church. We’re
not talking about
getting your name
on the membership
list. We’re talking
about serving,
getting to know
people, and
getting involved
in ministry. You
cannot read the
New Testament and
come away with
the idea that being
an active part of a
church body is not
important. It is!
(continued on page 29.)
Nineteenth-century
poet John Donne
famously wrote, “No
man is an island.”
He went on to
describe people as
parts of a continent,
all interconnected.
Just as Europe
becomes smaller
when a mere clod of
its land washes out
to sea, so each of us
is diminished, he
said, by the death of
any individual. We
are part of the whole
and belong to each
other. 2
This analogy
accurately portrays
God’s intent for
His people. From
the moment God
created the first
man, He declared,
“It is not good
for the man to be
alone” (Gen. 2:18).
Even God
Himself is one in
three. The three Persons of the Trinity—
God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy
Spirit—exist in relationship with one another.
Made in His image, we too are meant to live
in relationship with others. Before His death,
Jesus prayed for His followers that they might
be one as He and the Father are one (John
17:11).
The Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes
echoes the idea that people need each other.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-11 says: “Two are better than
one because they have a good reward for their
efforts. For if either falls, his companion can
lift him up; but pity the one who falls without
another to lift him up. Also, if two lie down
together, they can keep warm; but how can
one person alone keep warm?”
This concept of living in community with
others, particularly with other believers, is
fleshed out in New Testament teachings about
how Christians make up the body of Christ.
Like the various parts of our physical bodies,
30  |  jul 2009  ec  magazine
we are interdependent; we need each other
(1 Cor. 12:12-26). We are to be concerned for
each other. When one of us suffers, that suf-
fering should bring pain to the rest. When
one of us receives some honor, everyone in the
body should be glad about it.
Within the body, we all have different spiri-
tual gifts, like teaching, preaching, or serving,
to name a few. These are given by God so His
people can work together to build up the body
of Christ (Eph. 4:11-13). As members of Christ’s
body, we are instructed to love one another
deeply and to serve one another (1 Pet. 1:22;
4:8-10), to carry each others’ burdens and to
help those caught in sin (Gal. 6:1-2). God’s
design for the community of believers is that
we be a support network, an accountability
system, a team, and a family. His intention is
that we do life together, not alone.
What Community Looks Like:
Sharing
During the 1960s, a phenomenon of
American culture was the commune. In com-
munes, people (your grandparents call them
hippies) lived together in groups, sharing all
their resources. Their way of life was aimed
at rejecting materialism and getting back to
nature. 3
But communes neither originated nor
ended with hippies. They have been present
throughout history in different cultures, and
there was an element of communal life in the
early church. Acts 2:42-47 describes the early
church life as one in which members held
their possessions in common, sharing with
one another and selling what they