The Jesus Community

Getting saved is easy, becoming a community is hard.
In Eugene Peterson's Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, he looks at community, specifically, Jesus community, in the final section of the book. God actually says a lot about community. Because one of the big parts of Jesus' work, one of the big parts of his death on the cross and his resurrection, is the creation of community.
Yikes, there is just too much going on in my brain, too much to think about, to really turn this into a blog post. I'll say this.

The 10 Commandments give us a lot of guidance for community. Particularly how to live in community, and how much we need help to be a community.

Prayer, as Jesus teaches prayer, teaches us a lot about community. It teaches us that the Jesus community is inclusive, because anyone can go to God and anyone can belong in the Jesus community. It teaches us that the Jesus community is honest, with one another and God, and humble. And prayer let's us participate in what God is doing. And prayer changes us.

The Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary, indispensable for Jesus community. And the Holy Spirit creates community. In fact, when we see true community being formed, we should immediately know that the Spirit is present, because real community is impossible without supernatural help. Real community is the sign of the Spirit.

Community takes place in the real world, and it's dirty.

Jesus and Paul were not impressed with famous people, and didn't spend much time trying to get the powerful into the Jesus community (though that certainly doesn't mean we should neglect the famous and powerful, he certainly loved Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, Paul was powerful in some ways, so, that's not to say we shouldn't love or include or evangelize the famous and powerful, we should, but it should always be relational, and it should be because God opened those doors for us.)

Community is important. We don't have enough community, I don't work hard enough for community. We should all pray that the Church would cultivate more Jesus Community in the world.

God, Lord God, I come to you with a short and to the point prayer. Create more Jesus community in the world. Bring more people, whether they're the famous and powerful, but especially the wretched, wounded, and sinful, into a Jesus Community of grace. Grow your Community, your Kingdom, to the ends of the Earth, and use us to do that. Use us by helping us love others, loving them so much that they would know it must be a supernatural love, and let us point them to Jesus, the lover of our souls, the Redeemer from our sins, and the one who sent us the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, help us create more gospel community, more loving community, more community, more Jesus Community. We ask this, in his name. Amen.