The weather here in Nashville has been amazing. Saturday it was so nice we took the boys to the park to ride their bikes. Jett’s been riding for a while and Brewer rides a big wheel (my personal favorite), but Gage is just staring to ride his bike using training wheels. While he can ride for a second without them the reality is he’s not very consistent. He swerves all over, starts to wobble, and eventually will crash without them.
I love the concept of training wheels. While the training wheels certainly don’t keep him from falling, they do serve as a sort of guide to hold him up. They give him a certain confidence of balance he wouldn’t have without them.
The spiritual comparison of for me is community. I think in many ways God provides us with community to serve as training wheels. The only difference is I don’t think we’re to ever outgrow community.
Yesterday at Cross Point we talked a little about the following scripture.
Hebrews 10:23-24 “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. (24) And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.”
In this new year many of us have made resolutions to live unswervingly. In other words you made a resolution to be more consistent, non-wavering in some area of your life. It might have to do with your relationship with God (pray more), or your physical health (lose weight), or maybe even your marriage (communicate better), but most of us have some area in our life we would like to be more consistent.
This verse reminds us there is a direct connection between living unswervingly and doing life in community. We need community to help us keep our balance and consistency.
We need community that spurs us to close the gap between who we are today and who God has called us to be.
Sure we can go without it for a while. But eventually, I believe we’ll start to swerve, wobble, and crash without it.
How important do you think community is to living the life God has designed for you? Do you think you can live unswervingly without it?
Well said… you don’t realize the true importance of community until you are in community!
I think it’s hard to live out your faith without community. Or without a Christian community. I’ve tried, we’ve probably all tried, I know… I am struggling with this now, being married to an unbeliever. Definite rough patches! Definitely some “crashes”! But I thank God for having a Christian community to help me better stay on track. I doubt I would be walking where I am with the Lord if it weren’t for people praying for me and encouraging me. (And I hope I am reciprocating!)
Thanks for this post.
So true. And community has such a bigger meaning for me in ’09 than it did in ’08~
Can’t wait to listen to yesterday’s message!
You delivered a great message yesterday. I hope that my husband and I can do better in the community department this year. I love our church and the vision you guys have.
I am glad that you pointed out that sometimes us members may not agree with everything that is done on Sundays or other things (nit picking) but we all agree on the mission. Thats the bigger picture.
Community teaches us true love and tolerance.
It stretches us. It helps us with perspective.
Brings with it may opportunities to practice mercy…unswervingly!
I think community is hugely important and is one of the reasons why i’m a bit nervous about the coming year. I am attending my last retreat as a part of a two year community in January. I could choose to begin the new one in march but felt God said “no – clear the calendar”. (each retreat requires me to travel to Chicago) I have very “held up” by this group of church leaders that I have met with every quarter for two years and know I will feel lost without them.
Obviously for most of us, this community is found within the home church. For me though, this group was really important because I’ve found community to be a harder commodity to find as a minister. I’ve gotten lonely and felt disconnected despite my best efforts.
Can I just say that at this time in my life one of the things I long for most in 2009 is a friend in leadership as well? I know I need that.
Nope, we’ve been without a church home for 2 years (long story–leadership burn out) and after having 39 years of communities we are starting to feel it spiritually. We live in a little town with dead churches (no Bible taught, no Jesus lovin) and a few bizarre (stocking guns in the church to defend themselves) churches. It’s quite the interesting season—we’re really having to press in to keep our gait with God on steady ground. I personally am ready for this season of being called out to be over. It is much easier to walk with others, but I must say I’m sensing a personal revival to match our 70′s Jesus Freak years.
Here’s a question: Wouldn’t this be called a community? Each of us posting our thoughts and being encouraged by one another?
What would I do without my Christian sisters and accountability partners and prayer warriors and online support? I’d be very lonely and sometimes unable to discern certain things. Community is important from beginning to end. Great post and great analogy with the training wheels. Exactamundo!!
Heidi Reed
@DubHow, I certainly think this would be a form of community. This is a hotly debated topic these days in lots of circles. I think anytime you are sharing your life, thoughts, ideas in a honest forum you are forming community at some level.
The question will be just how effective that particular form of community can be.
@pete the same question could be applied to a suicide hotline. Just how effective a form of counseling is a suicide hotline? While it might not lead you to the end solution your life needs it could just be the thing that keeps you from taking your own life. This form of community might not be the end all, be all, kind of community that we all say we want but it just might be enough to do what Hebrews 10:24 says
“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.”
As Paul says this form of community certainly deserves our “consideration”.
I believe that community is a must in order to live the life that God has designed for me. I’ve lived life with & without community and it is much easier to “stay afloat”, I guess you could say, when you are in community with other believers.
My small group took some time off the last month or so for the holidays and I have noticed that it hasn’t taken me long to take a step back. I desperatly need my small group community in my life on a regular basis to hold me accountable. We all stumble but knowing that you have people there ready to call you out if you do stumble will really make you think twice. My group starts back this week and I am more than ready!
Are you kiding me? Every single day! Metaphorically speaking, of course, but MAN! I’m a mess, God knows it and I’m okay with that.
I am with you on this. I think community is key. I know for myself I have desired community quite a bit, I just don’t seem to do it well. Never seem to fit in. How do you get plugged in when you feel left out?
Ironically, I blogged about community today.
http://www.kingdombard.com
Tony
@Harold, Couldn’t agree more!
very, very important!
For example, I’ve been sitting doing bible studies for 2 mentoring sessions. I can’t think of many things more dull than private bible study
(I’ll pause while you go to find stones to throw at me).
The only way I could find bible study intersting is doing it in community – to discuss, to hear others thoughts, to get affirmation and have others make points you hadn’t yet considered, and most importantly work together to apply it together.
Church is an action, a community, a movement….not a building or one single individual.
We are starving for community. We are all emotionally and socially retarded without it. It has been almost 2 years without community close by and we are lost. Sure, we have done what we can…we are close to our friends and family back home…and we have certainly tried to find a home church here (to no avail) so we down-load sermons from the states and try to maintain a “normal” life. But it is getting old, being that it is just the two of us…we try to keep our lives steady as we try to make sense of our life out here. I know that God intended us for deep, integris (sp?), meaningful lives with those we share our days with. We just don’t have anybody other then those we are ministering to. Please pray!
For me, community is HUGE! I need my “people” so very much. I guess I could walk it alone if I had to, but I truly believe God designed us to be relational with Him and others.
I’m thankful for this community here at Without Wax. Thanks for spurring us on Pete. I’m completely grateful!
Well said! In fact, so well said that I have to thank you, because I am going to steal your words to explain this very concept to my kids. They are 23, 21, 16, 14, and 11. The oldest is too smart for his own good, which is sapping his ability to believe in God at all. The next 3 have a hard time getting out of bed on Sundays and give us the “church is so boring” argument fairly routinely. I counter that with “you get out of church exactly as much as you are willing to put into it,” but I also feel going to church is important because of the community aspect. I just haven’t been able to really explain that theory very well. You’ve done an awesome job, and I hope you don’t mind if I paraphrase you or outright steal your words next time I need to cover this topic with my kids!
I absolutely need community to help balance me. I spent almost a year out of church after our church split and I totally wandered away from the path I knew I was supposed to be on. Lately I have had a myriad of some very challenging health problems that have kept me pretty isolated and it has put me into a funk and I get almost….. I don’t know the word I’m looking for, but it’s hard for me to jump back into the swing of things with people. I have to really guard against shutting myself off.
@Jan, steal all you want. I certainly don’t own these principles.
I woke up this morning thinking about community.
Last night I had dinner with three of my girlfriends (when one girl brought up the fact that since our church’s anual conference she hasn’t eaten a meal by herself and she’s so thankful for it. We sat around that small table, in an basement apartment, without the walls that we all so often build to keep others out, for a few precious moments sharing a simple meal of soup and discussing our dreams and fears and the amazing goodness of God.
Without the people that have become my community – even my family – since moving away from home over a year ago, I don’t know how I’d make it. We strive to live a life of biblically founded love – in communion with each other and with God. Sometimes it isn’t pretty, but then again since when has being human been pretty? It’s with these people that I laugh, cry, sing, pray, and live.
I need them, and they need me.
All we have to do is ask and any of us would give our last dollar, our last bit of food (which has been literally done), a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, a simple prayer, anything that we can give to the other. We try to have all things in common as we can – and it’s good.
Is that a “Rocket” Huffy bike? It looks identical to the one we got Tristan
I love my community group and those I have built community with outside that group. I hope I am as much of an inspiration and encouragement to them as they are to me.
I think in life there has to be a balance of living life without the training wheels, but at times keeping them on. I know I do not know it all and I definitely do not have it all together, and though I want to live life to the fullest in what God has allowed me to learn, I know that there are times in my life where I just need to shut up and learn from others, and grow from their experience and their wisdom (keeping the training wheels on), at least until I can take them off again. If that makes sense.
Community-Training Wheels….great comparison and thanks for sharing this message. Don’t know where any of us would be without that sense of ‘community’ and ‘belonging’. It does add ‘balance’ to all of our lives without question. And we PRAISE His Glorious Name for ‘giving’ us community’ and ‘balance’.
On another note, hopefully it was ok to add your tile to my website and blog??!!
Blessings to you and your family in 2009,
Kaye
Matthew 21:22
Community is HUGE. I think it is the only way one can grow in a church and also thrive.
I think it is also the only was the church can be respected and be a church that is looked at as a beacon in the community.
Being an introvert in person I always find it hard to build community and relationships. Thanks to the online social networking explosion and through mediums such as twitter, facebook, and blogs I have been able to build relationships with fellow church goers. This has allowed me to be an online extrovert, allowing friends insight to who I am and my interests and through this sharing have developed existing friendships and gained so many more. I feel so much more ‘stable’ now that my training wheels are in place.
Simply put, we need God and we need one another.
Hi Pete! I’m just de-lurking to tell you the excitement I had when I saw that your little guy has the same bike as my son, Jackson! He got it for Christmas this year. Thankfully we have a big kitchen….he’s been doing lots of riding inside since we live in upstate NY and we have nothing but snow outside.
I love your blog, and also Brandi’s! Have a great day.
For me, community has been huge this year. And it’s been this online community that has got me going again. I never wavered in my faith in the years since I’ve not been able to attend church, but I lost my motivation for moving forward rather than being stagnate.
Then I started meeting people through these sites that have lit that fire in me again. In whatever form community comes, it makes a difference. He didn’t talk about two or three being gathered in my name for no reason… it’s necessary. I just lost that for awhile.
@Kim, thanks for de-lurking. Jackson will love the bike. Gage can’t get enough of it.
community. you can live without it, but it’s like living life without Jesus as your Savior… you NEED it. and if you say you don’t, you have never experienced it the way He intended it to be. God created all of us to be relational/communal.
I will be linking your blog to mine this week. thanks!
Community is such an important factor for us as we all seek to be Jesus followers. I’m part of the same ‘big church’ and ‘little church’ communities as brunette koala who has also commented here. ‘Little community’ in the form of our small group is an anchor for me, as well as a way of being accountable to particular individuals. I’ve been wondering how that might work in online communities – can we be accountable to each other here?
I think (a bit tangentially) it’s also interesting to consider how the wider communities we live in, as in the world at large, where ever we are, act as an influence on our faith. Does my community beyond the church knock me off balance (sometimes!) or does it provide a reality check that can also be destabilising (yup, yup, yup!)? My ‘internal’ faith (for want of a better phrase) will thrive through the support and direction of my community of believers. However, my wider community is the challenge for me to make my faith real and active in the world, otherwise it has no meaning. Here in Scotland I am employed as a community education worker, funnily enough, and find myself walking this tension wire daily!
Thanks for the great post, very thought provoking.
Why did God tell Adam that it wasn’t good that he be alone (in the garden)?
What more did he need? He had GOD?
There’s something to be said about sharing your life. Probably so much more than we will ever comprehend.
This type of community has certainly been an ecouragement to me over the last few months. I am thankful for your encouragement that I have the opportunity to access. The cool thing about online is sometimes we don’t feel like encouraging but need to be encouraged and online allows me that opportunity without the guilt feelings.
ONE WAY PEOPLE!
In my opinion, transparent community relationships are the most important part of a group of believers. Afterall, that is all we are at CP is a collective group of believers. Can you achieve Heaven by “clocking in” to church every Sunday and possibly on Wed. nights. I don’t know, I am not God, but throughout my experiences, people like that live this way (like me, I used to be one) act a certain way at church, a certain way at work and a certain way at parties. I want to live life with people that are ONE WAY!
Having taken December off of our small group, I realize how much I depend on that community for a bit of sanity and lots of perspective. Probably why I’m so wacky lately. Too much swerving. I must be lightheaded. Where’s the chocolate?
Well…I have lived with community and without it…I have to say…I MUST have community!!! I guess you would say…”I have to have training wheels!” Thanks Pete!
No question community is a must. How would we, without God first and without community, move through life. Seriously, in one of the darkest moments of my life, my community gathered around and carried us. It was amazing! Look at the Acts church. What a community. So awesome that others wanted to be a part of what they saw. They saw Jesus lived out in community. Community keeps us in step when we get out of step … sharpens our swords if we are blessed enough with that depth of intimacy. Prayerfully, they never give up no matter what things look like in the earthly. Without my brothers and sisters honesty, I wouldn’t grow. I learn mercy, grace, forgiveness … am stretched. Wow! I love the training wheels analogy. First God, seoond family, then our “church” family (our community, our support, those who are like-minded in Christ), then others. Isn’t that why God said do not forsake the fellowship/gathering of believers? Good stuff!
It is a most important!! Community lifts us up, empowers us, breaks us, laughs at us, cries with us, feeds us, embraces us, holds us, makes us accountable, encourages us, runs with us, works with us, prays with us, challenges us….allows us to step out and grow the community and share the attributes of OUR community.
in the words of sanctus real, “oh oh we need each other!”
Oh my heavens – I would be lost, completely lost, without my community of believers. i used to go to a huge church, and i loved it, but now we go to a small church in inner-city Atlanta with lots of people from the projects, homeless people and some of us from the suburbs . . . and the community is definitely the best part about the church – I love it!
“How important do you think community is to living the life God has designed for you? Do you think you can live unswervingly without it?”
do i think i can live unswervingly without it? no. are there times when i wished i could? yes. there are days, weeks, sometimes months, that i wish i could just retreat away from everything. but i know that i am created for fellowship – to be in community, a community of believers, a place where i become equipped to be in any community, believers or not. i know that is my purpose.