Why? Because there is no better way to glorify Jesus, the one who saved me, than to give my all to bring to reality the Kingdom he desires. That's why I live in community, because it is the best, most enduring way to build solid church, because he lived in community with his brothers too.
What else is there but to live for a people who love one another? What other way? To live for yourself? To live to better a society that insists on dragging itself down to destruction?
No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
1 John 4:12
This is my only passion: to live for Jesus and his Church. Please don't confuse me with some 'flesh-bag' whose aims and ambitions are diverted this way and that. If that's the case you've got me all wrong.
I hate to differ with you but there is no evidence that jesus lived in community with his disciples. Sure there was a purse-keeper but much of the time all of them lived with their various relatives. As to community being the surest way of building the church, if the apostles had not travelled around the world, each to his own calling, and remained in community, the church may have remained a small religious sect in Palestine. We were instructed to go out into the world and preach the gospel, not to remain in cosy little communities.
ReplyDeleteBut didn't Jesus and his disciples travel together and share all things, ie, had all thing in common while jesus taught through the years of his ministry before his ultimite sacrifice for the human race??
ReplyDelete; ) The TJ
You see a conflict between community and the gospel? There is no conflict. And you won't find one in the New Testament either. Paul, like Jesus, travelled with a team of brothers in the work of the gospel. They were together and of one heart and mind, the same principles of community as reflected in the first community of Acts 2. And I see community helping to foster the work of the gospel now just as it did among the first church in Jerusalem.
ReplyDeleteNeither is there much suggestion that Jesus or any of his disciples stayed with relatives: of course there is some interaction with family and some hospitality too, but principally Jesus "had no where to lay his head". His home was being together with his disciples. And thus the common purse was crucial to their work as it was to the first church those very same disciples started.
Anon..
ReplyDeleteThere is also a difference in that initially they had to go and spread the word. whereas today you can look in all four directions, walk for 10-15mins and come across a church building. The word has been spread and in many lives is now long forgotten or ignored. The travelling doesn't need to be done in this country, it has already happened. The miportant thing now is that reclaim the land that was once taken in Jesus' name. The word is rarely lived out in this society.
Before I was a Christian I had visited churches and saw nothing (I wasn't woken by a presence of spirit) but when I went into a community house for the first time I saw something genuine. The strength of spirit that is fostered and grown within a brotherhood that lives for Jesus throughout the week is, in my experience, stronger than I've seen in any church. Admittedly I have not been in many and numerous churches or toured extensively, suffice to say I know and sense the Truth when I see it.
I'm proud to now be a part of this and I'm seriously on the way to moving into community, My heart is already there, it's just a question of practicalities and logistics for my body to follow. I recognise there is a price to be paid but I've seen lives changed as a result of others paying that price. I believe it's worth it.
DJ
Surely the argument is not one or the other, community outreach or evangelism not based on living together. It is clear that living in community satisfies some people of all religions; it is not unique to Christendom. (But I'm not sure what a community of contemplative monks does to serve those who live outside their high walls.) However, on a measure of souls brought into knowledge of Christ, it is also clear to me that mass evangelism is by far more successful (and again this is true of other religions). Incidentally, while the Bible does say that Jesus had nowhere to lay his head, which I think means he had no home of his own, it don't think it says his disciples were also homeless.
ReplyDeleteEl Viejo
The real need however is not simply for "souls brought into a knowledge of Christ" ie conversion but committed disciples - something mass evangelism in the West has largely failed to produce.
ReplyDeleteAs for Jesus' disciples continuing to keep their homes, two scriptures come to mind: first the sheer enormity of Jesus' call to 'follow him' at the beginning of his disciples' training (Matthew 4) and later Peter's acknowledgement that he had left everything in order to do so (Matthew 19).
wow some debate you got here!well im going to shift the topic a bit... im just going to say to Darren like wow man community thats amazing but you realsie this means covanent. i knew it and i am also seeing you as one of the leaders in what 4 years to come. it hink i had a word for you baout both community and leadership and im sure i told u well if i didnt i am now! good on you! love in Jesus!
ReplyDeleteEl Viejo
ReplyDeleteHowever, on a measure of souls brought into knowledge of Christ, it is also clear to me that mass evangelism is by far more successful (and again this is true of other religions)..........
But is it, is it really???..You've only got to look at the mass Wesleyn(sp) revival, many churches where built sure....but what are those churches now? around here many have been turned into private houses because the church life had died....why did it die? could it be because people where too much for themselves on an indivual level?
; ) The TJ
Why harp back to the Wesleyan movement? In so many ways they lost their vision because later generations have lost their faith. The geat Welsh revivals of the late 1800s changed most of south Wales so that in some villages every adult was converted. In a few cases, no doubt guided also by the natural Welsh tendency towards socialistic ideas and the fact that the entire community worked in the same coal pit, some tried to operate on a common purse. That was how some villages managed to build their chapels and schools but, if the chapel is still a 'House of God', that is a bonus.
ReplyDeleteThe point I was trying to make all too briefly was that each method of spreading the gospel has its own strengths. The close one-to-one contact by those in community with their potential converts/disciples is much more likely to succeed for longer with those who would never answer the 'altar call' of for example a Billy Graham campaign, which might reap thousands, large numbers of whom would fall by the wayside - but by no means all.
Throughout the history of Christianity various groups/sects/churches have squabled about their methods and their understanding of what they thought the Bible told them to do. Each thought either that they were the best expression of Christ's teachings or they alone were right. They even killed each other as heretics, and even Calvanists burnt other Calvanists to death in the early years of the Reformation. Could it be a case of "in my Father's house are many mansions?"
Recently I met a new convert to Roman Catholicism, whose joy in her religion shone from her face; and she could not stop talking about having found Jesus (not Mary!). What is needed by all is a little humility and less arrogance.
El Viejo
I guess we have to take the New Testament in its plainest sense. Jesus said 'make disciples' (not 'converts' as it happens - in fact, he used that word rather disparagingly - Matt.23:15) and it is true that any means of getting the message of Jesus out is good inasfar as Christ is preached (Philippians 1:18). But He also said "teach them to observe all that I have commanded". Since this includes the prominent commands to "love one another as (He) loved (us)" and to "renounce all things to be (His) disciple", it is not surprising that the first Church (founded on "the apostles teaching") shared "all things in common" and were "together in one place". I think this gathered together nature of the Church (and what better way than to live together?.. though clearly this isn't the only possible way) and this practical sharing is an essential part of the "obseving of what He taught". And it is in response to this "city on a hill which can't be hidden" that people praise God and discover Him for themselves (Matt. 5...) So let's evangelise in the biggest ways possible - yes! And let's live out the teachings of Jesus and the first Church in as radical a way as possible - yes! (But let's not use any clever arguments to justify being less committed to Jesus...)
ReplyDelete(Good to have some cut and thrust debate on your blog, eh, Tschaka? We love it...)
ReplyDeleteConverts.Disciples....a blog on the difference might be good here Tschaka
ReplyDelete; ) The TJ
but jesus had some periods of complete solititude. he would go into the wilderness to pray on his own - away from the disciples, to be alone with his Father.
ReplyDelete