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A Christian community Clergy view By PASTOR KRISTIN OLTMANN First Lutheran Church, Brainerd Your church needs you!
Is that a thought - "my church needs me" -- that goes through your mind when deciding whether to go to worship or Bible study or a fellowship event at your church? It's so easy for us to get into the "consumer" mindset, that sometimes we forget when we're at our place of worship, among our Christian community, that while we do benefit and receive many gifts like joy, understanding, care, and support, we aren't just receiving, we are also adding to what's going on - we are giving!
As we all know, a church isn't a building, it's the people! Without you, your unique and irreplaceable presence, your Christian community is missing something - whether it's your listening in the congregation, asking a question at Bible sudy, or adding another set of hands to help hand out food to those in need.
Your church needs your skills, your talents, your willingness, and even your challenging from time to time, as our churches worship and are called to much ministry in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord!
As Christians, Jesus Christ gives us the precious gift of community, and what a blessing it is. In the midst of our culture, with so much turmoil and often bad news coming on global and local levels, we need each other.
We need our communities of Christ's hope, joy, love, and faith to renew us, to nourish us, and to strengthen us! Recently, in one of our small group studies, at the church I am a part of, the topic was community. We read a quote by Tilden Edwards who wrote, "community is what everyone wants but almost no one is able to sustain well for long." Edwards is right - we as humans can't sustain our own communities - we argue, we look out for our own self-interests, we can't see the big picture, we get stuck!
But, thankfully, it isn't us humans that sustain our Christian communities - it's Jesus Christ our Lord, who binds us together as Companions in Christ called to serve the world. And, in our communities, we need as many companions as possible, to participate regularly in worship, in service, and in fellowship! That's how we grow in faith and that's how Christ sustains our churches, through God's people who give and receive, who serve and are strengthened. Our small group study went on to say, "It is lonely to be serious about the spiritual life in our time. Those who are aware of their hunger for a deeper life with God often feel isolated and misunderstood. We need others to help us see and hear ourselves clearly.
We need others to explore with us the edges of our fear and faith." We need each other in our individual congregations! And of course, we need each other as one large Christian church throughout our Brainerd lakes area and the world. This doesn't mean that we will agree on everything or have complete contentment with one another in our beliefs, interpretations, and preferences, but it does mean we love each other in our differences and support each other as the Holy Spirit works in our lives as communities and individuals.
Paul reminds us "for just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the one body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body -Jews or Greeks, slaves or free - and we were all made to drink of one Spirit." Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, "Christian [community] is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate." Each and every day, God continues to give us the invitation to participate in this great gift of Christian community, so why not do it? Going into the holiday seasons of Thanksgiving and Christmas, look at what's going on in your congregation, and pick one or two things that you haven't tried before to be a part of . . . pray about it and sign up! Your Christian community needs you there and as you already know, just when we think that we are the ones giving and serving others, we end up receiving, receiving the gifts of God in abundance. That's the beauty of Christian community at its very best, as we are called to God's work in the world! And, if you haven't tried out what it means to be a part of a Christian community, give it try, you won't be disappointed!
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