Redeemer and Community
This past weekend, I rejoined a community that I love for a brief weekend of fellowship and learning. Community was the topic of the annual Redeemer women's retreat, and it hit me in so many ways. Our speaker, Stacy Bartholomew, is the wife of Tuck, an assistant pastor at Redeemer in New York City. During her first talk, she said, "It is not the words from the pulpit, but how you live together as a community that will make or break your witness to nonbelievers." How true is this? How many times have you heard that people are turned off from the gospel because "christians" that they know don't treat others well, or the "church" isn't inviting? People outside of the church see how we, the Body of Christ, interact with eachother. They see us taking meals to their neighbors, helping people move, loving on eachother's children, and overall, loving those around us. However, they also see us doing the exact opposite of those things. Thinking about this really challenged me to think about how I portray the church, and ultimately Jesus, to those around me. Do I embrace the community that I am in, and give those outside of my "community" a glimpse the gospel?
I am struggling right now with what community looks like and what mine at this particular stage in life should look like. My small group talked a lot about what our ideal or dream of community is rather than the reality of what it is. This was very convicting for me, because I think that I have raised Redeemer Athens on this pedestal in my mind of being the perfect community. Yes, I realize that there are faults, and Redeemer is made up of sinners, but at the same time, I find myself not embracing the community I could have in Atlanta, because I want what I did have at Redeemer, or it might have even been, at times, that I wanted what I saw others had at Redeemer. I go to Westminster PCA in Atlanta. This church is over 100 years old, and to look in the congregation, you might think that some of the members are as well! It is made up of a lot of elderly people, a lot of people 40 and older, and a lot of children 12 and under. There are about 20 high school and middle school students, and a small handful of single adults, mostly over the age of 25. Basically there is no one my age, and therefore, I feel that there is no chance for me to have community there. Anyways, I have also had the attitude of, I am new and these people should be seeking me out and helping me feel involved, without any effort from me. This weekend I realized how selfish and "uncommunity like" that attitude was. God has me in Atlanta, and He has me at Westminster, and I should seek out ways to exemplify community to those in the church and those around me regardless of their efforts towards me. I don't know what it will look like to begin to embrace my community, but this weekend definitely got me thinking and praying about it, and it was another reminder of my selfishness. It's not enough to help with the youth group and reach out to them......they should be a part of my community, not the whole of it.
I am struggling right now with what community looks like and what mine at this particular stage in life should look like. My small group talked a lot about what our ideal or dream of community is rather than the reality of what it is. This was very convicting for me, because I think that I have raised Redeemer Athens on this pedestal in my mind of being the perfect community. Yes, I realize that there are faults, and Redeemer is made up of sinners, but at the same time, I find myself not embracing the community I could have in Atlanta, because I want what I did have at Redeemer, or it might have even been, at times, that I wanted what I saw others had at Redeemer. I go to Westminster PCA in Atlanta. This church is over 100 years old, and to look in the congregation, you might think that some of the members are as well! It is made up of a lot of elderly people, a lot of people 40 and older, and a lot of children 12 and under. There are about 20 high school and middle school students, and a small handful of single adults, mostly over the age of 25. Basically there is no one my age, and therefore, I feel that there is no chance for me to have community there. Anyways, I have also had the attitude of, I am new and these people should be seeking me out and helping me feel involved, without any effort from me. This weekend I realized how selfish and "uncommunity like" that attitude was. God has me in Atlanta, and He has me at Westminster, and I should seek out ways to exemplify community to those in the church and those around me regardless of their efforts towards me. I don't know what it will look like to begin to embrace my community, but this weekend definitely got me thinking and praying about it, and it was another reminder of my selfishness. It's not enough to help with the youth group and reach out to them......they should be a part of my community, not the whole of it.
posted by Courtney | 10:31 PM
5 Comments:
Yeah, this weekend got me thinking on how I really suck at building community in my own apartment complex, to those people the Lord has placed above, below, and next to me. It's not enough to just say hello every other day or so. Very convicting.
Yea i totally agree, community is always a lot more messy than we'd like it to be...
Hmm well said. I think I was convicted about the whole "using the youth group as my community" thing a few weeks back. But at the same time, they are one way God demonstrates himself to me so that while it is hard to find community with those my age sometimes, he is still teaching and growing me in whatever he has me involved.
A common-unity is visibly seen inside the walls of the church. ...and outside of the walls for that matter. We like to call the square mileage of turf around the church building a local community. Actually, the local community is not understood by many to have a central location anymore. It's even become a kind of distant and mythological expression of "Hearth and Home." But even now, we who believe have a perfect unity in Christ. We are invisibly connected by God to an event that happened in time and space 2006 years ago, and we externalize this love of God with an expression of sacrifice; always gracefully embracing each other's differences. May we forever grow deeper in our love for Him and for one another. And may the destruction of secular humanistic communism be a landmark, pointing us to the Object of our faith and hope, Christ alone, who created our community, church of our Redeemer.
Ahem...a new post is desired by all your loyal readers.
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