A Strong Community: God’s

Design for Growth

April 01, 2017
Monthly Newsletter

APRIL 2017
“Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles”
-Phil. 4:14-

Dear friends,

As we
prepare to celebrate Easter let us reflect on how Christ modeled the way
we should live our lives in a community. God never intended for us to live
life alone. And that is one reason Sports Outreach strives to Transform
Lives and Restore Hope through the establishment of strong, caring, and
supportive communities.

Far from the self-interested isolation of private lives, the biblical ideal of
Christian community challenges us to commit ourselves to live together as
the people of God. Quite simply, this type of community makes the Gospel
a lived reality, and strengthens us for the challenges that we all face. It
conveys God’s life and power to the world at large, and, in order to have
true spiritual growth, it is necessary. If we imagine that as Christians and
humans, we can live in total independence and self-sufficiency, we are
deluding ourselves. God, from the beginning, never intended that we
should go through the world “alone.” We simply cannot experience fully
the power and delight of life without being drawn into life together with
our sisters and brothers in Christ.

We know that becoming spiritually strong and mature takes time, but we
know less well that it also takes others. It’s a process that is revealed in the
“each other” language of the New Testament: love one another, forgive
each other, regard each other more highly than yourselves, teach and
correct each other,

encourage each other, pray for each other, and bear each other’s burdens,
be friends with one another, hospitable to one another, serve one another.
This list just scratches the surface, but it is enough to remind us that we
need the community of faith to grow up in Christ.

Though some may fear community because it involves vulnerability, it

should instead, be welcomed. The reward is to enjoy life as God intended,
“striving together as one for the faith of the Gospel.” (Phil. 1:27) How can
we balk at an offer like that?

Your friends and co-workers in Sports Outreach are building strong,

healthy communities under difficult and challenging circumstances. Will
you please continue to pray, encourage and if possible, financially support
these efforts? May you have a blessed Resurrection Day!
Community: God’s Design For Growth

Article contributed by NavPress

Visit NavPress website
God never intended for any of us to live the Christian life alone.

At the mere mention of the word community, people often eye you as if you had dropped in
from another world, smile tolerantly, and hope you change the subject. Good, sensible,
Christian people. They fear that you're going to tell them they have to sell all they own, move
to a farm, wear bib overalls, and raise peanuts. Or that they have to abandon their fertilized
lawns and move to the inner city. Because they misunderstand the idea of community, many
Christians don't want to think about it at all.
To avoid thinking about community simply because we misunderstand it will deprive us of
one of God’s greatest gifts. The idea of community is, in a sense, from another world, a world
very unlike our own. But it is neither from the world of communes in Vermont nor from the
placid world of cookies and tea Christians share before they rush back to their isolated lives.
Community is from the world as God wants it to be. It is the gift of a rich and challenging life
together, one that we need and can receive with joy.

Christian community is simply sharing a common life in Christ. It moves us beyond the self-
interested isolation of private lives and beyond the superficial social contacts that pass for
"Christian fellowship." The biblical ideal of community challenges us instead to commit
ourselves to life together as the people of God.

We know all too well that maturity takes time. We know less well that it also takes our sisters
and brothers in Christ. It’s a process that is revealed in the "each other" language of the New
Testament: Love one another, forgive each other, regard each other more highly than
yourselves. Teach and correct each other, encourage each other, pray for each other, and bear
each other’s burdens. Be friends with one another, kind, compassionate, and generous in
hospitality. Serve one another and submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. This list
just scratches the surface, but it is enough to remind us that we need the community of faith
to grow up in Christ.

Christian community is the place of our continuing conversion. Its goal is that, individually
and together, we should become mature, no longer knocked around by clever religious
hucksters, but able to stand tall and straight, embodying the very "fullness of Christ" (Eph.
4:11-16).
A WAY TO SEE CHRIST IN OTHERS

One of the most important ways the community helps us is by embodying Christ’s continuing
presence on earth. When my brothers and sisters love and accept me, I feel Christ’s love, too.
When I confess my sin and they forgive me, I know that God forgives me, too. When they
pray for my brokenness, I know that they are sharing in the healing work of Jesus. In our dog-
eat-dog, enemies-with their teeth-bared world, when we feel the crush of hostility and of our
own failures, to have our Christian community surround us with compassion and
encouragement lightens our loads, strengthens us, and gives us the courage to keep on trying.

A SOURCE OF ACCOUNTABILITY AND GUIDANCE

The community also furthers our continuing conversion by being a place where we teach
each other and hold ourselves accountable to each other. When I hear what God is teaching
others, it teaches me, too. When I submit to the guidance and scrutiny of my brothers and
sisters, it forces me to grow and to be accountable to the commitments I make.

Ignoring this powerful element is one of the main reasons many small groups never really
experience Christian community. They prefer to remain superficial. Inadvertently, perhaps,
they enter into a pact of mediocrity in which they tacitly agree to let all the members "mind
their own business" and not to hold people accountable either to each other or to the
teachings of Christ. It’s a great loss, for when we refuse accountability to the community, we
not only fail to grow, but we put ourselves in grave danger.

I tend to overfill my calendar with activities, projects, and meetings, a flaw that, for me, has
spiritual roots. When I began work on my first book, I took the idea to a group of trusted
Christian friends who knew about my weakness.

We had a wonderful and terrible meeting. After listening to me for a while, they said they
thought God wanted me to write the book. They also asked to see my appointment calendar.
It took only moments for them to see that I couldn't write the book and do everything I had
already scheduled, so they insisted that I should cancel several speaking engagements and
resign from some committees.

I took their counsel, although giving up some of those plans made me heartsick. I also sent
each of them a schedule of my "writing days" as a further step toward accountability. It is
clear now (though I knew it then) that they were right. If I had failed to submit to their
wisdom under God, that book would still be merely a few notes in a manila folder.
Such accountability doesn't need to have overtones of checking up and scolding. It works,
instead, to encourage us and help us in our growth and commitments. We may ask for
guidance about how to handle a difficult relationship on the job or about how to put together
a family budget that reflects our commitments about lifestyle and giving. And we'll be glad,
usually, to have people ask how it’s going. The community gives us a place to air our growth
and our struggles, our successes and failures. It simply gives us a way of guiding each other
ever more fully in the ways of Christ.

A PLACE TO PRAY AND WORSHIP

The community helps us grow, too, as it becomes a workshop for prayer and worship. Both
by instruction and by example, the New Testament teaches us to pray and to pray for one
another (Eph. 6:18, Jas. 5:16). We are called as well to a life of worship and praise. Yet,
frankly, our experiences of prayer and worship in the church often shunt us toward merely
watching others pray and take active roles in worship. As helpful as those experiences may
be, being spectators simply isn't enough. We need a lab. We ourselves need to pray for each
other. Each of us needs to be prayed for personally. And the small community is precisely the
place where we can experiment and learn the life of prayer.
When I am not involved in a Christian community, it is the times of prayer and worship that I
miss the most. Many of us are never really prayed for beyond a brief mention in one of those
quick-and-dirty list prayers. I once privately offered a simple prayer of blessing for a friend
who had been in public ministry for many years. I was overwhelmed when he said to me
afterward, "No one has ever prayed for me like that before."

We dare not neglect each other like that! Similarly, as we learn the ways of worship in the
small community, we not only deepen our own lives but also enrich the life of public
worship. In my experience, community is at its best when it becomes a workshop for prayer
and worship.

A PLACE TO SERVE

The community is also where we learn to strip away our self-interest in order to serve others.
It is here that we learn to share what God has given us, whether it be goods or spiritual gifts.
It is also here that we learn to be served, though we are sometimes prideful and reluctant like
Peter, who balked at Jesus washing his feet (Jn. 13:2-10). Sometimes we are the washers and
sometimes the washees, but in many ordinary ways we can learn what submission and service
mean.
One community I know gave time and money so a mother worn down by the demands of
young children could take a spiritual retreat. Others have found practical ways to swap
mowers and ladders and child care; some have explored group buying to help each other
grow in stewardship. I have seen people abandon a special outing to bail out a friend’s leaky
basement and give time freely to help remodel a bathroom or repair a car. In whatever ways,
community means watching over one another for good, knowing that as we serve, all of us
are growing stronger in Christ.

A WITNESS TO THE WORLD

The value of Christian community reaches even further than bringing the Body of Christ to
strength and maturity. Such communities, by their character and their action, witness to the
power and presence of God in the world. They are models of what God wants for all of
humankind. Jesus' disciples are to be the light of the world (Mt. 5:13-16), shining like bright
stars (Phil. 2:15), reflecting the brightness [the glory] of God (2 Cor. 3:18). Often the
Hebrews' experiences of deliverance were sent, God said, so that they and the nations "will
know that I am the Lord." In a similar way, the unity and mutual love that distinguish Jesus'
disciples will demonstrate that Jesus was, in fact, sent by the Father (Jn. 17:23).
Too often, unfortunately, this beacon of witness has fallen far short in candlepower,
especially where Christians have accomodated darkness rather than penetrating it. But though
the Church in general may fail and though we may be embarrassed by the antics of some
Christians in the public eye, Christian communities everywhere can radiate the good news of
God’s loving intentions for all of creation. In these clusters of Christians, people should be
able to see what they hope for but hardly expect: people serving rather than using each other.
People of widely different social statuses and professions honoring each other rather than
putting each other down (Gal. 3:28). People who tell each other (and everyone else) the truth,
rather than lying out of convenience or cussedness (Eph. 4:25, Col. 3:9). They can see a
people who are no longer captive to the spirit of the times. They will see love and acceptance,
compassion and kindness, commodities that are in short supply in any age. And where they
see this, the stark contrast of these communities compared with the world around them is
itself a very compelling witness.
AMBASSADORS OF GOD'S LOVE

But such communities go further still. They not only demonstrate God’s love; they also
mediate it. They carry "the ministry of reconciliation" (2 Cor. 5:18) to those around them,
bringing God’s compassion and healing power into a broken world.
That work goes forward visibly in many ways. One Christian community spends enormous
energy trying to meet the plight of the homeless. Another works to rehabilitate homes of the
poor and the elderly. Yet another quietly yet actively pursues a ministry of prayer and
healing. And still others focus directly on evangelism, on feeding the hungry, on getting
justice for the oppressed, and on much more. Each community with its particular mission is a
guerrilla unit establishing a beachhead for God’s peaceable Kingdom in a hostile world. And
from those outposts God’s love flows freely.

FUNCTION OVER FORM

Some Christians feel that they must follow the call to community in rigorous, perhaps even
radical, ways. We can thank God for the example of our brothers and sisters in communities
such as Koinonia in Americus, Georgia, and Sojourners and the Church of the Savior in
Washington, D.C. They help teach us principles that God wants for the whole Christian
fellowship.

At the same time, we need to know that the Bible doesn't require—or even give special
blessing to—certain forms of community. Structure is not the point; relationships are. We can
live together as God wants us to in a great variety of ways—ways that strengthen rather than
disrupt our vocations, our families, and the other commitments we have already made under
God’s guidance. The good news is that community is a gift God offers to pour love out on us
all.
GETTING SMALL

Even though forms may not matter much, size does. For community to be specific and
personal enough to reach its potential, we need groups small enough for everyone to be
directly involved.

The practice of the earliest Christians suggests a small scale. They often met in each other’s
homes for meals and teaching, for worship and prayer (Acts 2:44-46, Acts 12:12-17). And it
is clear that when Paul advised the Corinthians that "everyone" should be ready with a psalm,
some instruction, or a revelation, he expected the meeting to be small enough for everyone to
participate (1 Cor. 14:26).
Certainly that doesn't mean that we have to abandon our large congregations end public
buildings. It suggests, instead, that we are more likely to find community’s richest benefits in
smaller groups—Sunday school classes, Bible study groups, mission groups, worship and
prayer groups, and others.

The lived reality of community—in whatever form it takes—holds great promise both for the
Christian fellowship itself and for the world at large. For Christians it provides a place where
together we can change and grow strong in following Jesus. For the world the life of the
Christian community broadcasts the good news and mediates God’s love to those who so
desperately seek it.
A CALL TO COMMUNITY

The practice of Christian community, quite simply, makes the gospel a lived reality. It
embodies a specific, personal way of life together in Christ. It strengthens us to live the life to
which we am called; it conveys God’s life and power to the world at large. And it is
necessary.

When we imagine that we, as Christians and humans, can live in total independence and self-
sufficiency, we are deluding ourselves. God, from the beginning, never intended that we
should go through the world "alone." We simply cannot experience fully the power and
delight of life with God without also being drawn into life together with our sisters and
brothers in Christ. Without experiencing such life together, we will not discover how
wonderful the news about Jesus really is.

Community is not to be feared, but welcomed. The risks don't go beyond those it takes to
follow Jesus. The reward is to enter into life as God intended it to be lived from the
beginning. How can we balk at an offer like that?
4 Reasons the Bible Calls
Us to Community
Community is God’s desire for us—and a sign of a
mature faith. Because at the end of the day, when
we grow in our relationships with others, we’re
growing in relationship with Him!
by Stewardship Team on February 3, 2017 personal-
development | @ChrisBrownOnAir
 See Also
 We All Need Community (And That’s Okay)
 4 Ways to Stay Spiritual This Summer
 Tune in to Life, Money and Hope with Chris Brown for daily
encouragement and advice!
When God first formed Adam from the dust, he was the only human on the planet.
Can you imagine how lonely he must have felt? But it didn’t last long. God said it
wasn’t good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18) and decided to give Adam some
company—so He created Eve.

And that was the first little community the world ever saw!

Now, 7.4 billion people later, it sure doesn’t feellonely. People are everywhere!
Even so, it’s easy to get so wrapped up in our own lives that we don’t take the time
to really get to know others. We might mingle between worship songs or catch up
in the breakroom at work, but that probably isn’t real, authentic community.

Here’s the deal: It’s important to spend time alone with God, soaking up His Word.
But He didn’t intend for us to live in isolation. He specifically designed us to
crave—and thrive in—relationship with others. We’re our best selves when we’re
experiencing life’s highs and lows with other believers. That means everyone,
whether you’re single or married, needs community.

Don’t take it from us though. The Bible has a lot to say about this topic! Here are
four reasons the Bible says community is so great.

1. Community is encouraging.

Being in community gives you the chance to be around people at different stages
of their faith journey—and to bear their burdens alongside of them (Galatians 6:2).
That’s awesome, because everyone has something to teach and to learn. In fact,
it creates the ideal environment to be a Barnabas (friend), pursue a Paul (teacher),
or train a Timothy (student).
What it comes down to is lifting each other up, learning from one another, and
being the friend each of us needs. That’s how Hebrews describes community:

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good
deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but
encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching
(Hebrews 10:24–25 NIV).

2. Community is fun.

Community should never feel boring or forced. In fact, it should be the exact
opposite. Psalm 133:1 (NIV) tells us, “How good and pleasant it is when God’s
people live together in unity!” Our culture can sometimes portray Christians as a
pretty boring bunch. But that couldn’t (or shouldn’t) be further from the truth!
Believers can be goofy, witty and just really fun to be around. Yes, community has
a higher purpose. But it should also be enjoyable!

3. Community attracts the Holy Spirit.

The Bible says the Holy Spirit is present whenever believers gather together
(Matthew 18:20). A great example of this was the early church of Acts, which
made a habit of meeting together, eating together, and worshiping together. As a
result, “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (Acts
2:46–47 NIV).

Being in church on Sundays is definitely important. But if you want to be a Christ

follower, be one every day in the context of all your communities. That’s where
you’ll see ministry happen.

4. Community fosters love.

We’ve probably all been to a wedding where the officiant recited the familiar
words of 1 Corinthians 13, which ends with, “And now these three remain: faith,
hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Paul held love above all else in his letter to the Corinthians. And he did the same
with his letter to the Colossians: “Bear with each other and forgive one another if
any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And
over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity”
(Colossians 3:13–14 NIV).

Community is life-giving—and essential to following Christ. Scripture says that’s

because we’re better together than we are alone (Romans 12:4–5).

It can be hard for some of us to commit to community, especially if we’re guarded

or prefer solitude. But community is God’s desire for us—and a sign of a mature
faith. Because at the end of the day, when we grow in our relationships with
others, we’re growing in relationship with Him!
 AMOUNT
ORDER NOW

God made us to live in community. We are made for relationship, whether in marriage,
family, friendship, work, or a church body. And while relationship is often hard and costly
this side of heaven, God uses it to shape us more and more into the likeness of His Son.

In Titus, Paul describes this wonderful opportunity for growth in godliness that comes through
relationships. When we show a younger brother or sister a godly example to emulate, we spur them on
to grow in holiness. When we lovingly correct one another, our words can help someone draw nearer
to the Lord. When we live sacrificially for one another, we model Christ’s example and become more
like Him.
When we live sacrificially for one
another, we model Christ’s example and
become more like Him.

Paul instructs older men and women to be examples to the younger generation. We live in a
culture where everyone wants to be young, stay young, and pretend they are young—but in
God’s Kingdom, age brings with it the wisdom that comes from having walked with the Lord
for many years. Imagine how different our nation would be if each young person growing up
today had a godly elder speaking into his or her life. Imagine the older generation spurring
the younger on to godliness and the young people encouraging the older generation in return.

Paul also speaks to slaves and their masters. For us today, there’s much here that applies to
the relationship between employees and their employers. You may not like your boss—but
your boss is God’s gift to you. As you work for your employer as though working for the
Lord—respectfully, enthusiastically, and faithfully—you display the very heart of God with
your life, and you may even open a door to share the Gospel in the workplace.

In our personal time with God, we get to know our heavenly Father, but in our relationships
with other people, we get to know ourselves. God uses our loved ones—and those we have a
hard time loving—like a chisel to shape us into men and women who reflect the image of
Christ to a broken world.

Prayer: God, sometimes loving people is hard. I know that I am often unlovable. Give me
Your love for others. May my interactions be pleasing to You as I pursue godliness in my
relationships. I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17).