We Are Created For Community
Posted by Tim on May 1, 2008
Last Sunday I preached on the fact that fellowship is spiritual. Many times, we don’t think that it is. We think that prayer, bible reading, witnessing, worship, etc… are spiritual but fellowship is a waste of time; or something that we do during our “off time” from God. This could not be further from the truth. This is a series of five blogs explaining five reason why I believe that fellowship is spiritual and vital to the follower of Jesus.
The first reason is that we are all created for fellowship. This true whether we are “people people” or not. Personally, I am not a people person. I have all kinds of reasons for not wanting to interact with people much. I am a guy and generally we are not the most social. I am an American and in general, we are not the most communally minded people on earth. After all, accomplishing tasks and checking them off our lists is way more important than people. I am from Los Angeles, so I grew up in a very rushed and busy culture. In LA we don’t talk to cashiers. They don’t want us to either. They want us to get our stuff and get out so they can help the next person and we are usually more than happy to oblige. When I moved to the south I had a very hard time getting used to cashiers and service individuals wanting to talk. OK, I am still uncomfortable with this… I am form a disfunctional home. I never learned simple, polite personal interactions. I struggle with things like manners and being polite to people. Lastly, my whole spiritual experience has been in the Pentecostal church. We Pentecostals look down on those denominations who fellowship a lot. Why spend our time in worship and at the altars! By the time we have started late, had extended worship, preached for an hour and had altar time, there is no time left for fellowship. We leave that for those churches that get out early. And we hope they eat quickly at the restaurants so they will be empty when we get there.
The problem is that these are all excuses for not being who God created me to be. He created me to be in relationship and to live in community with others. After all He created me in HIS image. According to Gen 1, God said, ” Let US create man in OUR image…” Even before God created the universe, He lived in community. The Trinity shows God as a communal being. He created us in His image so we must be made for community also.
Almost immediately after creating us, God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone…” He knew we were created for community and fellowship. So when I isolate myself, “it is not good…” None of us can be all we were created to be in isolation. Shunning relationships falls short of God’s best for us. I believe that is the definition of sin…
Lord, help me today to overcome all my excuses and strive to build relationships. Help me become who YOU created me to be by living in community with those around me. Overcome my excuses and preferences with YOUR love and power.
