4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling;
5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
6 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
Lately, I've been hearing a lot of talk about Christians "being in community." Such talk is usually filled with the sort of thing you'd hear in a t.v. commercial: "You'll be the better for it"; "You need community"; "It's good to be in community"; "We're stronger together"; "You need the Church in order to grow," and so on. Participation in a local community of believers - church - is "sold" to believers on the basis of what they'll get out of it.
I suppose this approach is natural, given the highly consumerist culture of the West. The typical modern, western Christian expects to be persuaded to invest their precious time, energy and money in a particular local church congregation. They want to know "how much bang they'll get for their buck" and most churches pander to this consumerist attitude with bigger and bigger Sunday morning entertainment - er - I mean, worship services.
In my city, for example, there are several competing mega-churches, each with a "campus" of buildings, enormous menus of ministries, appealing to every imaginable distinctive there might be among their congregants: age, marital status (single, single-but-looking, married, divorced), hobby type (yoga, skateboarding, fishing, scrapbooking, book club, etc.), sports interest (hockey, football, basketball, golf, etc.), etc.. A couple of these churches even have "mini malls" with book/gift shops, cafes (with micro-farm, boutique coffees for purchase), and lounges.
For these mega-churches, the "jewel" in the crown of their church life, though, is the Sunday morning shebang - sorry - Worship Service. For the better part of an hour, teams of professional musicians, with professional lighting and sound mixing, massive screens flashing and dancing with images and color, whip the congregation into an emotional frenzy in preparation for the charismatic, well-muscled pastor, shirt open to mid-chest, tattoos peeking out from under his sleeves, hair coiffed into a dramatic wave atop his head, who, in energetic, upbeat tones serves up (in fifteen minutes or less) some "new spiritual insight" to his audience.
I contrast all this with a Christian church I recently heard about in Iran, meeting in secret in the dead of night in a basement, each member risking imprisonment and even death by attending the meeting. Quietly, somberly, with deep soul-earnestness, these believers pray together and study God's word for hours at a time. Some have been cast out of their families, others have lost businesses, a few have actually already served time in prison for their faith. They are bound tightly together, closer than blood-relatives to each other, worshiping and serving God, not with sensual "concerts of praise" costing them nothing, but truly with their very lives, risking all to be together.
Why? What could possibly motivate them to do this? What are they getting out of meeting together that could compensate for the enormous danger of doing so?
Well, simply put: "Birds of a feather flock together." The Iranian Christians are drawn together by the spiritual "magnetism" of the Holy Spirit; the Spirit in each of them drawing them together, motivating them into fellowship by the love he's given them for himself and one another.
1 John 3:14
14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.
Philippians 2:1
1 Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit...
Romans 14:17
17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
2 Corinthians 1:21-22
21 Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God,
22 who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.
It is Christ within, dwelling in each believer in the Person of the Holy Spirit, that is the "glue" that binds Christians together in community. He is what moves disciples of Christ toward one another in self-sacrificial love, after the example of the Saviour.
And it is selfless, divine love that is essential to the Christian community. After all, Christians are just "sinners saved by grace," moving progressively toward greater and greater Christ-likeness, not all-perfected saints with whom one will always enjoy unruffled and profound spiritual communion. We all have "rough spots," thorns of selfishness and sinful habit, sharp spikes of personality and preference not yet conformed fully to Christ, with which we accidently - and purposefully - wound and abrade one another. If we're going to move into community together and stay in community, we are going to need enormous amounts of divine love and grace.
Fortunately, the Holy Spirit not only draws believers together but imparts to them what is needed to remain together and to thrive spiritually. (Galatians 5:22-23) Why, then, have believers in the West become so migratory in their church membership, so light in their fidelity to any particular community of Christians? How is it that personal benefit is now the highest concern they have in considering participation in a local church? What is the core difference between the Iranian Christians, determined to be together as the family of God regardless of the cost, and modern, western believers who ebb and flow among local churches, hyper-sensitive to offense, radically committed to the satisfaction of their own agenda rather than to the edification of the Body of Christ?
It seems evident to me that the general fluidity of allegiance among modern western Christians to a particular local group of believers is fundamentally the result of a very shallow walk with God, of the Spirit being pushed out to the margins of a believer's life, and Self being in control. There are exceptions, of course, where believers have good reason to depart the church to which they've belonged: false teaching, incorrigible carnality and worldly compromise. Generally, though, in my experience anyway, the migratory western Christian is simply not under the Spirit's control, shifting about among churches to serve Self, not God.
What a mistake it is, then, to make appeals to such Christians to be involved in church life on a self-centered basis. This is to inflame the very self-interest that prevents believers from committing to a local community of believers for the long-haul, persisting among them even when it is costly and difficult. You can't get the bonds of self-sacrificial love and fellowship of the Iranian believers by way of the self-serving, sensual church culture of modern western Christianity.
Galatians 5:13-14
13 For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
14 For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF."
Philippians 2:3-8
3 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves;
4 do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.
5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.
8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
1 John 4:7-11
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
