Ten years ago, when I started my first full-time ministry, I had no clue what was going on anywhere else in the world.  Now, I can read blogs written by pastors all over the globe and hear their stories of what God is doing everywhere.  I can watch or listen to messages in realtime as they happen.  And the more I hear and see what God is up to all over the world, the more I’m convinced that American Christians are

Spoiled Brats. And I’m one of them.

We are specifically spoiled when it comes to community.  Some of our Christian communities have begun to look more like country clubs and health clubs than redemptive love dispensing communities.

I have been here too…

I have taken my community for granted.  I have inadvertently made it about my desires and passions and not what the Holy Spirit has in mind.  And yet, so many followers of Christ across the globe have no regular access to genuine Christian community due to cultural and environmental factors…or by our burdening requirements.

It is not simply to be taken for granted that the Christian has the privilege of living among other Christians.

– Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together pg 17

I have taken for granted true community in my life.  I am guessing that you have too.

So many people next door or on the next continent yearn to be included in what most of us have free access to everyday.

It is true, of course, that what is an unspeakable gift of God for the lonely individual is easily disregarded and trodden under foot by those who have the gift every day.

– Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together pg. 20

We’ve brought our Americanized cliches and clubs inside the Church over decades and centuries.  Now we are long overdue for a crossroads.  We need to circle back and come to grips with a Church that hasn’t engaged the broken, hurt, and poor in ways that provide not only for their physical needs but provides them with real life-changing community.  I know I have stepped all over true community.

Where do we go from here? How do we fix what’s broken?