Day 19. Cultivating Community

Day 19. Cultivating Community

Warren begins, ”Community requires commitment. Only the Holy Spirit can create real fellowship between believers, but He cultivates it with choices and commitments we make. Paul points out a dual responsibility…” We have part of the task. We have work to do. But what?

Warren does an excellent job of advising us of some of the attributes of community but lacks guidance on how we do our part to cultivate honesty, humility, courtesy, authenticity, sympathy, etc. When John Wesley was asked whether or not we should just sit and wait for the Holy Spirit to change us (going on to Christian Perfection), he said, “Not in careless indifference, or indolent inactivity; but with vigorous, universal obedience, in zealous keeping of all the commandments, in watchfulness and painfulness, in denying ourselves, in taking up our cross daily; as well as in earnest prayer and fasting and a close attendance on the ordinances of God. And if any man dream of attaining it any other way…he deceive his own soul.”

In other words, we have work to do; our groups have work to do if we are to become communities.

My community guru, Thomas Hawkins, is again helpful. Of course he takes more than a seven page chapter to provide it. The fact is that building community takes more effort than a day or a week. Industries have been built in the secular community to facilitate team-building in corporate America. The good news is that we have the Holy Spirit on our side.

But if your church is serious about building community in its small groups, I would highly recommend that they all spend 10 hours with Hawkins’ book, Cultivating Christian Community and the short course “Lay Speakers Cultivate Christian Community,” Discipleship Resources, DR392, ISBN 13:978-0-99177-392-7. (It’s not just for Methodists or lay speakers for that matter.)

In them he describes key practices of Christian community and how they are developed. Neither Warren or Wesley would be surprised by what he has to say. Some of the key distributed (among and in the midst of the group) practices are listening, dialogue, discernment, covenant making, praying and reflecting together, hospitality, and servant leadership. Reflect on your groups, whether administrative or meditative. Could they develop better practices in their ministries for Jesus Christ? Go for it.

Blessings,

Rick