I was involved in a conversation earlier today that repeatedly touched on community. One question I walked away with is how do we, Christians, accurately define community? I think too many churches define community as the body of believers in the church. And all too often that community looks very much like us. So where does that put those who don’t look like us…or think like us? Do they have a different or separate community of their own? Should we even broadly define community as persons with common interests, policies, or beliefs? Isn’t that limiting God’s notion of community (I know we are very good at limiting God, but should we do that)? If we define community as a specific tribe (denomination) doesn’t that limit God’s idea of community…after all, God had twelve tribes. Isn’t this the same issue the Church faced in the first century…gentiles and Jews…male or female…slave or free? Seems to me all are God’s children (at least that is how I would interpret God’s view of humanity), and any time we redefine community to be something less than ‘all’ we are building walls…walls that God never intended to be built. Unless of course, God did not mean to include everyone when John wrote, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16). Don’t mistakenly define our community as those who “believe in him.” God has clearly defined it as “the world.”
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