Community
Posted On Monday, 3 September 2007 at at 4:42:00 pm by Lisa
I had an interesting weekend away with a group of youth leaders from my church at a farm. Interesting, is the word I use when I can't be bothered explaining the mix of emotions, experiences and all that it encompassed. A brief summary:
- Marshmallow toasting
- Fantastic food
- Interpretive dance
- Settlers of Catan
- Charades (I had to act out Albertine by Brooke Fraser - can I just say that is a flippin' hard one to do)
- Me doing masses of study for BCNZ paper
- A nasty spiritual attack that left me in masses of pain for most of sunday morning
- Listening to Life Fm - we were very excited about this! (don't get that in wellington)
- A lot of discussion.
- Finding out the true lyrics to a 'Fray' song ..... turns out I have been singing something that wasn't there....... in my defence I wasn't the only one!
- Oooh and yes ...I got the leaders to Bongo themselves :P (highly entertaining)
Anyway one of the things we discussed was community. In fact the debate got quite heated at times. There was argument that Christian's rely far to much on online community and use it too much (which I disagree on) and there was argument that we needed to become more like the Acts 2 church.
So my questions for you are (you can pick one or both)
- What would you define community as?
- Do christians rely on online community too much?
"My concept of community includes the following: it is a safe space; there is acceptance of people as part of a group; there is respect for the unity and diversity of people in the group; every person participates in the decisions of the group; there is support for processes that do justice to the most disadvantaged - not only those inside the group, but also those outside the group"
"would you like to flat with me Fraser? i haven’t found a place though, in fact i haven’t even thought about it, but i love musicians!!!"
"Sorry Stan, I don’t think that would be a good idea as I have friends who don’t seem to be able to get on with you..."
-________________-
What is an Acts 2 community? How relevant is it to the 21st century world? While the core of what our faith is doesn't change, how it is lived out does. We live in a cultural context, and our view of what community is, is informed by that context. In Acts 2 there was no internet, no blogs, no CNN, no 52 channels and nothing on cable.
While community can (and should) be a place of love, acceptance and healing, it can also be suffocating, places where the sense of self is lost or given over to the group. Such communities can be places of oppression and abuse. doing community is hard, especially when we live such fragmented lives.
Geeg , I really love your definition, I think it is a very apt description that can be applied to both secular and spiritual contexts.
Thank you for raising the awareness that communuities are not always a place of comfort, but are a place where people can feel used and abused to.