By Community, I mean the commonwealth and common interests, commonly understood, of people living together in a place and wishing to continue to do so. To put it another way, community is a locally understood interdependence of local people, local culture, local economy, and local nature…A community identifies itself by an understood mutuality of interests. But it lives and acts by the common virtues of trust, goodwill, forbearance, self-restraint, compassion and forgiveness…Community life is by definition a life of cooperation and responsibility. Private life and public life, without the disciplines of community interest, necessarily gravitate toward competition and exploitation.

~Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community-a collection of essays. pp. 120-121.

Mix Three Ingredients

This is where community and much of our experience with conventional church structures part company. If Berry is right in his definition community, then most of our experience in church does not reflect it. It seems to me that our people—by that, I mean the followers of Christ—should naturally reflect the qualities that Berry mentions. Indeed, those very qualities seemed to emerge quite spontaneously in Acts chapter two. The significance is in the fact that there were no other influences on the newborn church than the gospel message and the presence of the Spirit. There were no slick programs and stewardship drives. No Evangelism Explosion, Experiencing God, or Purpose Driven Life. There was the gospel, the Spirit and the Church. Mix the three and the elements of community came forth like a fragrance. Continue reading Community: Deliberate Obedience →