Today is a different time.

I am not talking about some sentimental time period or some long abandoned cultural norm that is is seen as a relic. This is a trait that is woven into the fabric of who we were created to be. God created us to live in community with each other. He infused us with relational DNA. We long to be in meaningful relationships with each other, we long for true community. Jesus prayed a prayer for our community in John 17…

I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.  John 17:20-21

Jesus’ prayer in John 17 is at the heart of God’s plan for mankind. It’s what Jesus accomplished next that redeemed our need for community and redeems our broken relationships with others. This amazing redemption should bleed into our community with others. Christ wants to remove the barriers like privacy fences, personal space, and hidden burdens that drive us from community into isolation.

In what ways have you experience Christ’s redemption of the community in your life?

Membership has its privileges is what we’re taught in our culture.  In our small groups (and in our churches as a whole) we’ve brought that same attitude with us.  We don’t want to let the “riff-raff” in to mess up our “intimacy”.  And come to find out, intimacy is just a word we use to mean “make believe world where none of us have issues.”  We carry around this fake entitlement that let’s other fakers in and keeps people with real problems out.  Why don’t we see this for what it really is?  When we pull back the facade it is really obvious that it’s not real community.  I think we have gotten comfortable in a group where you don’t ask about what’s really going on in my life and I won’t ask about what’s really going on in your life.  Except we are all holding on to struggle and hurt at times in our lives and to argue this or ignore it just causes us more pain and holds us back in our spiritual lives.

Truth be told, I’ve experienced pain just like the guy we don’t want to let in our exclusive party.  I’ve struggled with sin just that gal who needs to be in authentic community to encourage her to make positive changes in her life.

Jesus was so great at this.  Not only did he let everyone into his party, he took the party to the people that needed to be there.  He didn’t care that the religious leaders didn’t think that he should be hanging around “sinners”.  He knew where He needed to be.

I know that I’ve been bringing a lot of Dietrich Bonhoeffer lately, but he has so much to say to our Christian communities.  Here, he takes the truth and whacks us right between the eyes…

The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from a Christian community may actually mean the exclusion of Christ.

wow…

How does that sit with you?  What does it make you want to do?

People’s messy lives have the potential to bring conflict and frustration to a group if the leader doesn’t help keep the group focused on what Jesus said in Matthew 22…

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.” (MSG)

I believe that you can’t really love God without really loving your neighbor.  Sure, we can show God love without loving our neighbor, but we’re withholding something from God if we aren’t showing love to those God has placed in our paths.

In our small group loving God and loving our neighbor means seeing the people we do life with as Christ sees them.  Seeing with old eyes sees the single mom as a failed wife.  Seeing them with new, neighbor loving eyes, sees a hurting woman who struggles with what the future holds and offers love and hope.  Seeing with old eyes sees the small group member struggling with alcohol as someone who has weak self-control.  Seeing with new, Christ-like eyes, sees someone who is harboring lingering hurt.  Someone that could use a supportive friend.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer says it this way…

Human love constructs its own image of the other person, of what he is and what he should become.  It takes the life of the other person into its own hands.  Spiritual love recognizes the true image of the other person which he has received from Jesus Christ; the image that Jesus Christ himself embodied and would stamp upon all men.

I know in my own life, more times than I’d care to admit, I have seen someone and heard their story only to come up with a list of reasons they are in the situation they are in.  I want to get to the place where I consistently look into the eyes of my neighbors and see the hurt and brokeness they’ve experienced and help them recapture the the image of God in which they’ve been created with.

What are some ways you’ve experienced real spiritual love from your small group?

He said, “Some day, after you’ve kicked off your small groups, someone will say, ‘Look at the mess you’ve made.’ And all you can do is look at them and say, ‘Yeah, isn’t it great?’

Community without messy isn’t authentic, Biblical community.

There is no way around it. Our lives are messy.  Our lives are filled with issues and baggage and pain.  As I mentioned yesterday, in order to really engage and create depth in our relationship with Christ we need purposeful, truth-telling words from friends.  The only way to get those words is through raw, burdens-laid-bare, authentic, messy community.

Bonhoeffer again has something to share on this topic…

Only that fellowship which faces disillusionment (he is speaking of giving up our lofty dreams of community that are perfect and without blemishes), with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God’s sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given it.  The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both.  A community which cannot bear and cannot survive a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. (Life Together, pg. 27)

Bonhoeffer’s words are straight to the point and may even be hard to hear.  If you are looking for  a community that is perfect, without blemish, that ties every loose end like a thirty minute 80′s sitcom, then Christian community isn’t for you.  Christian community is build on each person’s ability to get down in the muck with their brother or sister who is struggling and lift them up and give them hope.

True Christian community is a graceful, glorious mess. Isn’t it great?

God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of man.  Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him.  He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth.  He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation.  He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ.

We need words with friends.  Not exactly like the iPhone app, but words that are true and meaningful – words that can change someone’s life.  We were not created to do this life alone.  We need each other to encourage and help speak truth into our lives.  The depth of our spiritual lives depend on it. I believe, like Bonhoeffer, that our relationship with Christ hinges on our relationship with other followers.  We need each other to sharpen our spiritual lives.

Proverbs 27:17 says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”

We need to have Words with Friends…important, life changing, truth telling words.

It is as important for the leadership community to be tied together with each other and you!  Leaders need someone to go to when they struggle with their groups and if that level of community and intimacy is in place between your leaders, the pressure can be lessened on your leadership.  Other leaders can help each other through difficult situations in their groups, or personal lives.  The possibilities are endless!

What can you do to create authentic community among group leaders?  Get them together to pray for each other.  Have fun together!  Right now I am organizing a paintball outing for our leaders.  How many times do we stress to our leaders the importance of connections outside of the organized group time?  The same goes for our leadership community.  Let out there and live life with your leaders!

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There aren’t very many of us that come into a group thinking that it would be a good opportunity to make something all about us, but we can easy go there.  How many times has a real need come up in my group only to think to myself, “Can we speed this up, Sunday Night Football is on in 10 minutes!”  (Sorry folks in my Sunday night group…) I offer to pray for their needs and we go on our way.  I feel like a real jerk for feeling that way.  Be honest, sometimes we aren’t on the same page with God.  We don’t want to be the answer to the prayer we are willing to pray because that would be messy and take the focus of our lives off of us.  Yet, how many times are WE the ANSWER to our own petty prayers for hurting people around us?  We use prayer as an excuse to NOT DO ANYTHING.  I know for me I need to STOP PRAYING, and START ACTING on the promptings that God gives me when I do pray.

Here’s a thought…
We lead our groups to the level of closeness and growth that we choose to be involved in.  If we lead out on mission, our groups will follow.  If we lead out in selfishness, our groups will be closed, self-serving, ugly representations of the Body of Christ.