Community 101: Finding vs. Building

If you find that it is difficult to find community, a helfpul post by James Emory White . . .
One of the great myths of relational life is that community is something found. In this fairy tale, community is simply out there – somewhere – waiting to be discovered like Prince Charming finding Cinderella. All you have to do is find the right person, join the right group, get the right job, or become involved with the right church. It’s kind of an “Over the Rainbow” thing; it’s not here, so it must be “over” there.

This is why so many people go from relationship to relationship, city to city, job to job, church to church, looking for the community that they think is just around the corner if they can only find the right people and the right place. The idea is that real community exists somewhere, and we simply must tap into it. It’s not something you have to work at; in fact, if you have to work at it, then you know it’s not real community.

This mindset runs rampant in our day. If you have to work at community in a marriage, you must not be right for each other. If you have to work on community where you are employed, you’ve got a bad boss, bad co-workers or a bad structure. If you have to work at community in a neighborhood, you just picked the wrong subdivision. If you have to work on things with people in a church, well, there are obviously just problems with the church, or its leadership, or yep, its “community.”

I cannot stress enough how soundly unrealistic, much less unbiblical, this is. Community is not something you find; it is something you build. What you long for isn’t about finding the right mate, the right job, the right neighborhood, the right church—it’s about making your marriage, your workplace, your neighborhood and your church the community God intended. Community is not something discovered, it is something forged. I don’t mean to suggest that any and all relationships are designed for, say, marriage. Or that there aren’t dysfunctional communities you should flee from. My point is that all relationships of worth are products of labor.

This is why the Bible talks about people needing to form and make communities, not just come together as a community, or to “experience” community. 

It’s why principles are given – at length – for how to work through conflict. 

It’s why communication skills are detailed and issues like anger are meant to be dealt with. 

It’s why the dynamics of successfully living with someone in the context of a marriage, or family, is explored in depth. As the author of Hebrews put it so plainly: “So don’t sit around on your hands! No more dragging your feet... run for it! Work at getting along with each other...” (Hebrews 12:12-14, Msg).

But that raises a problem. You probably don’t know how to work in such a way as to create community. 

Don’t worry; you’re not alone.

Benedictine oblate Kathleen Norris once wrote how several monks told her that one of the biggest problems monasteries face is people who come to them “having no sense of what it means to live communally.” They have been “schooled in individualism” and often had families that were so disjointed that even sitting down and having a meal together was a rarity. As a result, “they find it extremely difficult to adjust” to life in community.

Monks called into monastic life feeling unprepared for relational life? 

Welcome to our world. We spend years in school to prepare for a career without having to take a single class on getting along with a coworker. 

We spend months planning a wedding, meeting with caterers and photographers and wedding directors, and never once have to explore what’s involved in communicating with our spouse.

We go through prenatal classes, decorate the nursery, and set up the college fund, and never even think about how we’re going to interact with our kids when they’re teenagers.

Add in our flaming depravity and things really get sketchy. Running alongside our longing for community is a deep current of anti-community behavior. We are filled with anger and envy, pride and competition. We do not naturally extend grace or forgiveness. We seldom take the high road, and we usually assume the worst of others. 

What is missing from most of our visions is a picture of community. It’s like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle without the picture on the box. One of our family traditions is putting together a jigsaw puzzle on New Year’s Eve. We lay out the pieces on our kitchen table and invite anyone and everyone to put it together. Of course, the picture on the box is always front and center. Why? Without a sense of what we’re trying to produce, we’re just putting pieces together in random, haphazard ways, hoping something good comes out in the end.

So what is the picture on the community box?

The Bible calls it shalom.

More on that in the next post.

James Emery White

Rethinking the Building of Community

From churchandculture.com . . . 
They would rather communicate with their friends online than in person.

They don’t want to learn in groups.

They want to navigate life on their own and, if they need help, they want to get it when it is convenient for them. And through their phone.

All this and more come from numerous studies of late conducted on Generation Z, the most recent being from the nonprofit Common Sense Media. It’s a fast-changing landscape to monitor. For example, the percentage of young people who said their favorite way to talk to friends is face-to-face declined from 49% to 32% in just six years. As co-author and lead researcher of the Common Sense Media project Vicky Rideout mused: “You can’t help but say, ‘Is there something big going on here?’ – some fundamental shift in the way people will be communicating with each other in the future.”

The communication revolution is, to my thinking, self-evident. What is less discussed is the community revolution it reflects, and what that means for those of us invested in fostering community.

Quick: How do you build community in your church if people – particularly young people – don’t want to be in a small group and would rather interact with people online?

If you’re like most leaders, you’re at a bit of a loss. Which is why it’s time to rethink community. Not rethink its biblical dynamics, which are the established target on the wall, but rethink how best to lead people into biblical community. Particularly in terms of starting points.

Let me see if I can stretch your thinking a bit. Right now, there’s a group of apps that are exploding in popularity with Generation Z that allow a form of community and “hanging out” that has never been provided before. For example, the app Houseparty. It allows video chat with up to seven of your friends. When a couple of people open it and start chatting, a push alert that they’re “in the house” is sent to everyone they’re connected with. Soon, the room fills up. Such experiences have been made possible by the availability of video chat in messaging apps like Kik and Facebook Messenger, as well as standalone apps like Fam, Tribe, Airtime, ooVoo and Houseparty.

It’s been called “live chilling.”

Some are even calling it the new “third place.” Do you remember that phrase? There used to be only two places where you could engage community or take up social residence—your home and your work. A third place in the U.K. was always the local pub. In the U.S., Starbucks and other coffee shops became the “third place.” But now, apps like Houseparty are becoming the preferred third place.

Boomers went to their friend’s house after school or, as an adult, to a small group in a home. Generation X would call their friends on the phone after school. Millennials used AOL Instant Messenger and later text messaging to keep up with their friends. Generation Z is back to having a house party.

Only it’s through their phone.

Could that be a starting point for entrance to and experience of community? I don’t know why not. There would be two mistakes to make with our changing culture. One would be to insist on having all entrance and starting points reflect the end game of, say, discipleship or community. The opposite error would be to drop the target on the wall and lower our standards in such areas. Both would be mistakes. Instead, we need to keep the biblical target on the wall for such things as authentic community but innovate in terms of how best to stair-step them into it. Because you will have to stair-step them into it.

And who knows? If we do, perhaps the house party will lead to an even newer third place.

The vision of the new community inherent within the church.

James Emery

Sources

Betsy Morris, “Most Teens Prefer to Chat Online, Rather Than in Person,” The Wall Street Journal, September 10, 2018, read online.

Laura Pappano, “The iGen Shift: Colleges Are Changing to Reach the Next Generation,” The New York Times, August 2, 2018, read online.

“Beyond Millennials: The Next Generation of Learners,” Pearson, August 2018, read online.

Emily Drooby, “For Generation Z, ‘Live Chilling’ Replaces Hanging Out in Person,” USA Today/Buzz 60, February 20, 2017, watch online.

The Need for a Place to Be Honest About our Struggle with Sin

“Confess your sins to one another” (James 5:16). Those who remain alone with their evil are left utterly alone. It is possible that Christians may remain lonely in spite of daily worship together, prayer together, and all their community through service—that the final breakthrough to community does not occur precisely because they enjoy community with one another as pious believers, but not with one another as those lacking piety, as sinners. For the pious community permits no one to be a sinner. Hence all have to conceal their sins from themselves and from the community. We are not allowed to be sinners. Many Christians would be unimaginably horrified if a real sinner were suddenly to turn up among the pious. So we remain alone with our sin, trapped in lies and hypocrisy, for we are in fact sinners.

However, the grace of the gospel, which is so hard for the pious to comprehend, confronts us with the truth. It says to us, you are a sinner, a great, unholy sinner. Now come, as the sinner that you are, to your God who loves you. For God wants you as you are, not desiring anything from you—a sacrifice, a good deed—but rather desiring you alone. “My child, give me your heart” (Prov. 23:26). God has come to you to make the sinner blessed. Rejoice! This message is liberation through truth. You cannot hide from God. The mask you wear in the presence of other people won’t get you anywhere in the presence of God. God wants to see you as you are, wants to be gracious to you. You do not have to go on lying to yourself and to other Christians as if you were without sin. You are allowed to be a sinner. Thank God for that; God loves the sinner but hates the sin.” ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Wild Wild Country

An observation from James Emory White on a Netflix documentary on what people will do who are looking for community, spiritual experience, and a sense of purpose. . .
 
One of the more provocative and fascinating documentaries you will ever watch that released last month on Netflix is "Wild Wild Country."

It's the true story of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, often called Osho, his personal secretary, Ma Anand Sheela, and their community of followers in what became known as Rajneeshpuram in Wasco County, Oregon.

The goal was to build a utopian commune in the Pacific Northwest, but it didn't end up very utopian at all. Instead, after conflict with local residents escalated, the cult responded with bombings, assassination attempts, poisoning and the first bioterror attack in the United States.

Along the way, you enter into the dynamics of this cult, which include the removal of any and all sexual boundaries, manipulation and mind control, mass wiretapping and too many Rolls Royces for the Bhagwan to keep up with.

But as fascinating as the story of the rise and fall of the cult itself proves to be (brought to life through extensive documentary footage), it is the stories of the people who were involved that are most engaging.

And enlightening.

To this day, they look back on their involvement with an air of wistfulness, while acknowledging the horror of the drama's end. As I watched each installment, I was struck by how these smart, seeking people, were drawn into such a ridiculous mess. Three things seemed to pull them in: the longing for community; the longing for some kind of spiritual experience; and the longing for some sense of purpose. Three things they still long for and look wistfully back on as having existed—even if for a fleeting moment before ending in chaos.

The commune certainly gave them community. The Bhagwan led them into a spiritual experience (occultic, but an experience). And the building of the utopian paradise gave them their sense of purpose.

What was lacking, of course, was truth.

And therein lies an important lesson. There is nothing wrong with the desire for community, experience and purpose. They are good and God-planted desires. But, when divorced from God, they turn in on themselves and lead to decay and eventual destruction. In this case, community became dictatorial, experience became amoral and purpose was used to rationalize every manner of evil with the means justifying the end.

This is the riveting story of "Wild Wild Country."

Christianity traffics in all three desires as well, but adds the important dynamic of the truth God has revealed about community, experience and purpose. When we were first given the Garden of Eden, it provided community, experience and purpose, but we were also told of the tree from which we must not eat, establishing authority, truth and boundaries. Community does not exist for itself, nor does experience or purpose. That is the great difference between the cult's manifestation of all three and the Christian vision for all three.

I could not help but feel like "Wild Wild Country" is a depiction of what C.S. Lewis once called the "apeing" of the Christian faith by the evil one. This is the "apeing" of the new community and God's desire for humans within it.

"Wild Wild Country" should be required viewing for leaders, though it is often difficult to watch and deserves its "Mature" rating. It reminds us of the foundational longing inherent within us that cries out for community, spiritual experience and purpose.

And how we need to offer each of them, along with truth, to the world.

James Emery White

The Art of Meaningful Conversation

Here is a short video on the three levels of conversation.  Highly recommended!

Having a Conversation 101 from Desiring God on Vimeo.

An Example of Brotherly Love

Simple Invitation

The power of a simple invitation . . . 

Gospel Neighboring

6 REASONS WHY MEMBERSHIP MATTERS

By Kevin Deyoung at Gospel Coalition.  The question of membership always arises when we have our membership class.

“Why bother with church membership?”

I’ve been asked the question before. Sometimes it’s said with genuine curiosity-“So explain to me what membership is all about.” Other times it’s said with a tinge of suspicion-“So tell me again, why do you think I should become a member?”-as if joining the church automatically signed you up to tithe by direct deposit.

For many Christians membership sounds stiff, something you have at your bank or the country club, but too formal for the church. Even if it’s agreed that Christianity is not a lone ranger religion, that we need community and fellowship with other Christians, we still bristle at the thought of officially joining a church. Why all the hoops? Why box the Holy Spirit into member/non-member categories? Why bother joining a local church when I’m already a member of the universal Church?

Some Christians–because of church tradition or church baggage–may not be convinced of church membership no matter how many times “member” actually shows up in the New Testament. But many others are open to hearing the justification for something they’ve not thought much about.

Here are just a few reasons why church membership matters.

1. In joining a church you make visible your commitment to Christ and his people.Membership is one way to raise the flag of faith. You state before God and others that you are part of this local body of believers. It’s easy to talk in glowing terms about the invisible church-the body of all believers near and far, living and dead-but it’s in the visible church that God expects you to live out your faith.

Sometimes I think that we wouldn’t all be clamoring for community if we had actually experienced it. Real fellowship is hard work, because most people are a lot like us-selfish, petty, and proud. But that’s the body God calls us to.

How many of Paul’s letters were written to individuals? Only a handful, and these were mostly to pastors. The majority of his letters were written to a local body of believers. We see the same thing in Revelation. Jesus spoke to individual congregations in places like Smyrna, Sardis, and Laodicea. The New Testament knows no Christians floating around in “just me and Jesus” land. Believers belong to churches.

2. Making a commitment makes a powerful statement in a low-commitment culture.Many bowling leagues require more of their members than our churches. Where this is true, the church is a sad reflection of its culture. Ours is a consumer culture were everything is tailored to meet our needs and satisfy our preferences. When those needs aren’t met, we can always move on to the next product, or job, or spouse.

Joining a church in such an environment makes a counter-cultural statement. It says “I am committed to this group of people and they are committed to me. I am here to give, more than get.”

Even if you will only be in town for a few years, it’s still not a bad idea to join a church. It lets your home church (if you are a student) know that you are being cared for, and it lets your present know that you want to be cared for here.

But it’s not just about being cared for, it’s about making a decision and sticking with it-something my generation, with our oppressive number of choices, finds difficult. We prefer to date the church-have her around for special events, take her out when life feels lonely, and keep her around for a rainy day. Membership is one way to stop dating churches, and marrying one.

3. We can be overly independent. In the West, it’s one of the best and worst thing about us. We are free spirits and critical thinkers. We get an idea and run with it. But whose running with us? And are any of us running in the same direction? Membership states in a formal way, “I am part of something bigger than myself. I am not just one of three hundred individuals. I am part of a body.”

4. Church membership keeps us accountable. When we join a church we are offering ourselves to one another to be encouraged, rebuked, corrected, and served. We are placing ourselves under leaders and submitting to their authority (Heb. 13:7). We are saying, “I am here to stay. I want to help you grow in godliness. Will you help me to do the same?”

Mark Dever, in his book Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, writes,

Church membership is our opportunity to grasp hold of each other in responsibility and love. By identifying ourselves with a particular church, we let the pastors and other members of that local church know that we intend to be committed in attendance, giving, prayer, and service. We allow fellow believers to have great expectations of us in these areas, and we make it known that we are the responsibility of this local church. We assure the church of our commitment to Christ in serving with them, and we call for their commitment to serve and encourage as well.

5. Joining the church will help your pastor and elders be more faithful shepherds.Hebrews 13:7 says “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority.” That’s your part as “laypeople”. Here’s our part as leaders: “They keep watch over you as men who must give an account.” As a pastor I take very seriously my responsibility before God to watch care for souls. At almost every elders’ meeting the RCA Book of Church Order instructed us “seek to determine whether any members of the congregation are in need of special care regarding their spiritual condition and/or not making faithful use of the means of grace.” This is hard enough to do in a church like ours where there is constant turnover, but it’s even harder when we don’t know who is really a part of this flock.

To give just one example, we try to be diligent in following up with people who haven’t been at our church for a while. This is a challenge. But if you never become a member, we can’t tell if you are really gone, because we might not be sure if you were ever here! It’s nearly impossible for the elders to shepherd the flock when they don’t know who really considers them their shepherds.

6. Joining the church gives you an opportunity to make promises. When someone become a member at University Reformed Church, he makes promises to pray, give, serve, attend worship, accept the spiritual guidance of the church, obey its teachings, and seek the things that make for unity, purity, and peace. We ought not to make these promises lightly. They are solemn vows. And we must hold each other to them. If you don’t join the church, you miss an opportunity to publicly make these promises, inviting the elders and the rest of the body to hold you to these promises-which would be missing out on great spiritual benefit, for you, your leaders, and the whole church.

Membership matters more than most people think. If you really want to be a counter-cultural revolutionary, sign up for the membership class, meet with your elders, and join your local church.

Why Steve Jobs Didn’t Let His Kids Use iPads (And Why You Shouldn’t Either)

Here is an insightful article by  Sarah Lesnar I found here.   I have a concern over the long term use of electronics have on the way we think and read and relate to each other socially.  There is lots of material coming out about this issue. ~ David

If you fall within the Gen-Y era like us, chances are you’ve given a bunch of thought as to how you would raise your own children in this day and age (assuming you don’t have children already). Especially with technology, so much has changed since our childhoods in the 90s. Here’s one question: Would you introduce the technological wonder/heroin that is the iPod and iPad to your kids? Steve Jobs wouldn’t, and for good reason too. In a Sunday article, New York Times reporter Nick Bilton said he once assumingly asked Jobs, “So your kids must love the iPad?” Jobs responded: “They haven’t used it. We limit how much technology our kids use at home.” Especially in Silicon Valley, there is actually a trend of tech execs and engineers who shield their kids from technology. They even send their kids to non-tech schools like the Waldorf School in Los Altos, where computers aren’t found anywhere because they only focus on hands-on learning. There is a quote that was highlighted in The Times by Chris Anderson, CEO of 3D Robotics and a father of five. He explains what drives those who work in tech to keep it from their kids. “My kids accuse me and my wife of being fascists and overly concerned about tech, and they say that none of their friends have the same rules…  That’s because we have seen the dangers of technology firsthand. I’ve seen it in myself, I don’t want to see that happen to my kids.” If our current addictions to our iPhones and other tech is any indication, we may be setting up our children for incomplete, handicapped lives devoid of imagination, creativity and wonder when we hook them onto technology at an early age. We were the last generation to play outside precisely because we didn’t have smartphones and laptops. We learned from movement, hands-on interaction, and we absorbed information through books and socialization with other humans as opposed to a Google search. Learning in different ways has helped us become more well-rounded individuals — so, should we be more worried that we are robbing our children of the ability to Snapchat and play “Candy Crush” all day if we don’t hand them a smartphone, or should we more worried that we would be robbing them of a healthier, less dependent development if we do hand them a smartphone? I think Steve Jobs had it right in regard to his kids. So the next time you think about how you will raise your kids, you may want to (highly) consider not giving them whatever fancy tech we’ll have while they are growing up. Play outside with them and surround them with nature; they might hate you, but they will absolutely thank you for it later, because I’m willing to bet that’s exactly how many of us feel about it now that we are older.

Read more at: http://nextshark.com/why-steve-jobs-didnt-let-his-kids-use-ipads-and-why-you-shouldnt-either/#rmns

5 COMMON SMALL GROUP MYTHS (AND THE TRUTH TO HELP TRANSFORM YOUR GROUP)

From the Gospel Coalition website.
Small groups increasingly play a significant part in the body life of many congregations. No matter why your church has small groups, it’s clear that not everyone in your church will enter into these groups with the same expectations. In fact, it’s more likely that everyone will join a small group with wildly different expectations. Some join a small group to connect at the church. They’re new to town and know relatively few people, so they join a small group. Or perhaps your church intentionally funnels people into small groups so that they can better be cared for. Your pastors and elders use the small group infrastructure to shepherd the flock. Or perhaps your church has small groups to train your people to grow in godliness and to reach their lost neighbors and friends. Those are all legitimate reasons to have small groups. Yet the church must be clear about the vision, mission, and main purpose of their small groups.

What you believe about why you are in a small group will dictate how you behave in that group. It’s important for a church to be clear why small groups exist. Do they exist to connect, shepherd, and reach unbelievers or to support one another? Are they some combination of those different things? What you believe about your small group will dictate how you approach potential problems when they arise. For example, if you buy a house knowing it will be a fixer-upper, then you approach that faux wood paneling in the family room as an opportunity to upgrade and improve. Whereas if you buy your dream house and find out the basement floods, you’re pretty disappointed and discouraged. Similarly, be clear from the beginning about the vision and values of your church small groups.

I would suggest that a healthy small group is committed to studying and applying God’s Word within the context of Christian community in order to grow as witnesses of Jesus in our respective spheres of influence. At our church, we summarize this goal as “transformation in community for witness.” But whether your small groups are mainly to help believers grow or mainly missional, here are five small group myths that I’ve encountered over the years that need correcting.

Myth 1. A successful small group will not be relationally messy.

While most people wouldn’t explicitly say so, they expect their small group be without relational messiness. They go in thinking that these people will be their best friends (more on that later), and when they find out they’re nothing alike they wonder if they’re in the right group. When someone in the group is passive aggressive or talks way too much about politics, you’re looking for the closest exit. Yet the reality is that small groups are composed of sinners all along the same journey of faith. They're going to get messy relationally, which is precisely why we have the gospel of grace that shows us how we ought to be long suffering and humble toward one another (Phil. 2:1-11).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in Life Together: 

The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.

Truth: Small groups are where the grace of God overcomes all types of relational messiness through the blood of Jesus.

​Myth 2: Small groups exist for others to meet my needs.

Don’t misunderstand. It is a wonderful blessing that our relational needs can be met by one another in small groups. It’s a good thing that if you don’t feel connected, or know anyone, you can join a small group and meet others at the church. But the overarching reality is that small groups exist for you to love God by loving his body, the church. Small groups exist for you to love others with the love of Christ. This is a radically different orientation than expecting others to meet your needs. And when we all have this aim—to love each other with the love of Christ—then we do meet each other’s needs.

Truth: Small groups exist for you to love and serve others with the love of Christ.

Myth ​​3. Trust and transparency take many years to cultivate in a small group.

Consider Acts 2 and how the believers had all things in common, making sure none was in need, breaking bread together, praising God together. How long had they known each other? They probably had been in community for a couple of weeks or maybe months, but not much longer. The reality is that more time together doesn’t always mean more trust and transparency. That just tends to be an excuse. Stepping into a small group, where the expectations are properly set, significant trust can be cultivated from day one.

What prevents you from opening up? Perhaps it’s shame over your sin, embarrassment that your marriage is struggling, or heartbreak over your wayward children. This is precisely what the gospel addresses. Christ took the wrath of God at Calvary and with it took our shame, condemnation, and fear of man. We can in fact be open and honest about where we are with God, because God is actively at work in us to conform us to his image.

Truth: Trust and transparency are fruits of recognizing we are all recipients of God’s abundant grace for the forgiveness of sins.

Myth 4. Small group members should become best friends.

Certain expectations are embedded into this myth—idealistic visions of taking vacations together, our kids growing up and marrying each other, attending each other’s birthday parties. While it would be a wonderful blessing if members of the same small group did become lifelong friends, the New Testament is nearly silent on the importance of friendship as a basis for love. Rather, our unity in Christ is the foundation and basis for our sacrificial love for one another. Ephesians 2:11-22is about how Christ demolishes the hostility between Jew and Gentile. Jews and Gentiles may not have been “BFFs” in the first century, but by the unifying work of Jesus on the cross they could be members of the same body. Is this not amazing? Similarly, the blood of Christ unifies us to be members of Christ’s body, committed to encourage, build up, and love one another.

Truth: Small groups are united by the blood of Christ and members of one body.

Myth 5. Small groups should focus only on Bible study, not sharing sins or engaging in outreach.

Small groups that truly focus on Christ and his Word will inevitably get to how the gospel changes our life in all ways (sin, parenting, marriage, singleness, work, and so on) and to how we can share our faith. If your Bible study isn’t helping you to change into Jesus’s likeness you’re doing it wrong. If your study of the Bible doesn’t make you hate your sin more, ask for help in conquering it, and make you want to share your faith, you’re doing it wrong. Unfortunately, some small groups hide behind Bible study in order to avoid talking about the deeper heart issues that the gospel aims to address. If we truly allow God’s Word to speak, it must speak into our lives so that we confront our sin, strive to serve one another, and make intentional efforts to share this good news with the lost in our spheres of influence.

Truth: Small groups focus on how the gospel of Jesus Christ transforms us as his disciples who grow in holiness and as witnesses of his truth.

These five common myths underline a greater goal: the gospel must be central in the vision and mission of your group. If your group exists to meet your personal needs, then when it begins to fall short you go looking for the next group. But if the group exists as a microcosm of the church, where people of all types gather at the foot of the cross, then challenges, sin, and brokenness are an opportunity to apply the gospel of Christ.

Keep the Gospel Central in Small Groups

Here are a few suggestions to get your small group on the right track.

1. Regularly reorient your small group to see that they are members of Christ—rather than members of a particular church, denomination, theological tribe, Sunday school class, demographic (singles, married, people who adopt) or ethnic or racial background. Put Galatians 2:20 at the forefront of your group—we have been crucified with Christ and now Christ lives in us.

2. Help your group set biblical expectations for fellowship/community. We may not all hang out all the time, and we may not become best of friends, but we encourage each other in our faith as we meet regularly to open his Word together and to help each other testify to Jesus in our spheres of influence. We can humbly and sacrificially serve one another because Christ has sacrificed in order that we might be brothers and sisters in Christ.

3. Help your group see the glorious privilege to love one another and how it witnesses to unbelievers around us. Our love for each other confirms and validates the power of the gospel (John 13:35). The gospel takes wildly different people from every walk of life and transforms them to care deeply for each other. When your small group goes out of its way to love and pray for one another, you reveal the transforming grace of Christ and draw in unbelievers to witness this miracle.

Steven Lee serves as the pastor of small groups and community outreach at College Church in Wheaton, Illinois. You can follow him on Twitter.

Has 'Authenticity' Trumped Holiness?

This needs to be read by everyone in their twenties!

In recent years, evangelical Christianity has made its imperfection a point of emphasis. Books were published with titles like Messy Spirituality: God's Annoying Love for Imperfect People, Death by Church and Jesus Wants to Save Christians, and churches popped up with names like Scum of the Earth and Salvage Yard. Evangelicals made films like Lord, Save Us from Your Followers, wrote blog posts with titles like "Dirty, Rotten, Messy Christians," and maintained websites like anchoredmess.com, modernreject.com,churchmarketingsucks.com, recoveringevangelical.com, and wrecked.org—a site that includes categories like "A Hot Mess," "Muddling Through," "My Broken Heart," and "My Wreckage."

Meanwhile, self-deprecating humor sites like Stuff Christians Like and Stuff Christian Culture Likes became hugely popular repositories of Christianity's many warts, and writers like Anne Lamott and Donald Miller became best-selling, "non-religious" expositors of messy spirituality.

Evangelicalism—both on the individual and institutional level—is trying hard to purge itself of a polished veneer that smacked of hypocrisy. But by focusing on brokenness as proof of our "realness" and "authenticity," have evangelicals turned "being screwed up" into a badge of honor, its own sort of works righteousness? Has authenticity become a higher calling than, say, holiness?

How Did We Get Here?

Erik Thoennes, professor of biblical and theological studies at Biola University, sees the authenticity trend in the undergrads he teaches. At the beginning of each class he asks his students to write down two things they love and two things they hate. Consistently, one of the things they say they hate is "fake people." But the Christian life involves a whole lot of "fakin' it" on the path to being integrated, Thoennes says.

"There's this idea that to live out of conformity with how I feel is hypocrisy; but that's a wrong definition of hypocrisy," Thoennes said. "To live out of conformity to what I believeis hypocrisy. To live in conformity with what I believe, in spite of what I feel, isn't hypocrisy; it's integrity."

Thoennes hopes his students understand that sanctification involves living in a way that often conflicts with what feels authentic. Still, he gets why younger evangelicals have such a radar for phoniness. They grew up in an evangelical culture that produced more than a few noteworthy cases of fallen leaders and high-profile hypocrisy. Their cynicism reflects a church culture that often hid its imperfections beneath a facade of legalism and self-righteousness.

All of this contributed, in the early and mid-2000s, to an authenticity boom in evangelicalism. Recognition of the biblical calls to confession (James 5:17) and "walking in the light" (1 John 1:5-10) had not gone away in Protestantism; they just became more and more couched in language of being real, raw, transparent, and authentic in community.

Typical of the many articles written about the topic is Josh Riebeck's 2007 piece forRelevant, "Fighting for Authenticity," which announced that "authentic community, authentic faith, and authentic Jesus are the cry of the new generation."

"We don't want to be fooled anymore. We don't want to be gullible anymore," Riebeck wrote. "We want flawed. We want imperfect. We want real."

But why must "real" be synonymous with flawed and imperfect? When someone opens up about their junk, we think, "you're being real," and we can relate to them. But what about the pastor who has served faithfully for decades without any scandal, loved his wife and family, and embodied the fruit of the spirit? Is this less real?

When 'Authentic' Is Actually Inauthentic

Often, what passes for authenticity in evangelical Christianity is actually a safe, faux-openness that establishes an environment where vulnerability is embraced, only up to a point.

Becky Trejo, a 20-something photographer from Los Angeles who attends Mars Hill Church's Orange County location alongside her husband, Neph, has observed this trend in some small groups she's attended.

"There's this 'sweet spot' of authenticity," Trejo said. "Like if you reveal that you struggle with gossip, people are like 'whoopdee!' But then there are some sins you might share where it's like 'whoa, that's too much.' There has to be this middle ground, like 'I'm struggling with wanting to sleep with my boyfriend.' That's the sweet spot where people see you as really vulnerable and authentic, and it's required admission."

In this dynamic we often reward those who are most vocal about their authentic struggles in the "sweet spot," without giving equal weight to the "too small" sins or creating a space that is safe enough for the most embarrassing sins or darkest struggles.

This dynamic reflects another problem: our skewed understanding of sin. It's almost as if our sins have become a currency of solidarity—something we pat each other on the back about as fellow authentic, broken people. But sin should always be grieved rather than celebrated, Thoennes argues.

"Brokenness is an interesting word because if it's sin, we should call it that," Thoennes said. "I only feel sorry for broken people. God's mad at sinful people. Woundedness and brokenness are aspects of our sinful condition, but they tend not to emphasize the 'I'm giving God the finger' part of it."

We've become too comfortable with our sin, to the point that it's how we identify ourselves and relate to others. But shouldn't we find connection over Christ, rather than over our depravity?

Authenticity Means Growth 

Our notion of authenticity should not primarily be about affirming each other in our struggles—patting each other on the back as we share about porn struggles while enjoying a second round of beers at the local pub Bible study. Rather, authenticity comes when we collectively push each other, by grace, in the direction of Christ-likeness.

Reflecting on Christianity's "current obsession with brokenness" for her.meneutics, Megan Hill wrote, "If we are constantly looking for someone else who is broken in all the same places, we overlook the comfort we can have in the perfect God-man."

Hill wisely notes, "Grace covers. And it covers again and again. Thanks be to God." But if we stop there, "We are only telling half of the story. . . . Receiving grace for my failures also includes Christ's help to turn from sin and embrace new obedience."

Could it be that the most authentic thing any of us can do is faithfully pursue holiness and obediently follow after Christ?

In Scripture, Paul teaches again and again that Christians are "dead to sin" and risen to new life, no longer slave to sins but to righteousness (Rom. 6). That doesn't mean the battle with sin is gone. But as Paul describes the struggle in Romans 7, he says "it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me" (Rom. 7:17), noticeably separating his identity from this unwanted alien thing still residing within. The struggle is neither the point nor the marker of one's identity. In Christ we are new creations (2 Cor. 5:17), called to flourish through life in the Spirit (Rom. 8).

"I think goodness is more real in that we are actually living more as humans were intended to," Thoennes said. "Jesus is the realest human we'll ever see. He's authentic. He understands our brokenness. But he's as real as can be."

No Authenticity Points

Sin is necessarily part of our story as redeemed people. We shouldn't ignore or make light of it. But we also shouldn't wallow in it or take it lightly, for the sake of earning authenticity points.

As someone who became a Christian in his 20s, after having experienced the rocky ups and downs of a life without Christ, Luis Salazar of Whittier, California, finds it sad that so many young evangelicals seem to think dramatic struggles with sin are more real.

"I would never want to walk through it again," Salazar said. "I wish I hadn't gone through all that. A lifestyle of flashy sin isn't necessary to experience grace. It's not necessary to have a grand testimony of brokenness in order to be an authentic Christian."

To overcome our "authenticity" confusion, evangelicals must see themselves differently. Rather than focusing on our brokenness, we should look to Christ and those who model Christ-likeness. We should move in that direction, by grace and through the power of the Holy Spirit.

We should also, perhaps, stop speaking of ourselves in such "we are scum" terms. In Christ, we can be more than scum. And that's a message the world sorely needs.

"While we think self-deprecation causes us to be more relatable and empathetic to non-Christians, it's ultimately communicating a sense of disappointment, disillusionment, and discontentment," Stephen Mattson wrote for Red Letter Christians. "It thrives on negativity and kills our sense of hope."

"The reality is that there are many things wrong with Christianity," Mattson said, "but instead of focusing on the bad, let's attempt to reclaim the hope that Jesus represents—redeeming our world by personifying the sacrifice, service, grace, hope, joy, and love of Christ."

Brett McCracken is a film critic for Christianity Today and is the author of the recently released Gray Matters: Navigating the Space Between Legalism and Liberty, as well asHipster Christianity: When Church and Cool Collide. You can follow him on Twitter.

Networking vs. Encouraging (One Is a Lost Art)

Just biblical Community!

• BY GEOFF SURRATT
• IN LEADERSHIP
• — 9 OCT, 2013

photo credit: Tim Dorr

When our home phone would ring on Saturday morning I knew it was probably my future wife’s grandfather, Hubert Sparks, calling. He called my dad almost every Saturday morning. He didn’t call to complain, make a suggestion, or ask for anything; he called because he was genuinely interested in the welfare of his pastor. “Sparks here, pastor. Just calling to see how you and your family are doing. How can I be praying for you today?” The conversations were always short and to the point, and my dad always hung up feeling better. Hubert Sparks was the most encouraging man I’ve ever met.

The ministry of encouragement seems to be a lost art, replaced by the art of networking. Every relationship needs to be milked for all its worth. Who does this person know? What can they teach me? How can they help me or my organization get ahead? Lip service is given to his well-being, but what we really want is information and connection. I love networking and helping others, but I find myself getting cynical when every email, text or phone call begins, “I was wondering if we could get together? I have something I want to run past you.”

This week I had the chance to catch up with some old friends in Charleston. None of them wanted or needed anything from me, and I wasn’t trying to learn, grow or network. We were just friends swapping stories, hurts and prayers. I walked away from each conversation refreshed and encouraged. It made me wonder who am I encouraging? Who loves to get my call or text because they know I’m just checking to see how they’re doing? Who looks forward to getting together for coffee because they know they will walk away encouraged?

The interesting thing is that encouragement is a biblical imperative:

1 Thessalonians 5:11 (NLT) So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.

Who are you encouraging? Who are you building up? Who do you connect with on a regular basis with no agenda other than a genuine interest in their life? We all need a Grandpa Sparks in our lives.Sharein

— Geoff Surratt

Geoff Surratt has served as the Pastor of Church Planting at Saddleback Church and Pastor of Ministries at Seacoast Church. He is the co-author of The Multisite Church Revolution and The Multisite Church Roadtrip as well as the author of Ten Stupid Things that Keep Churches from Growing. Geoff blogs here and Twitters here, but he juggles for no man.