Back to Community // infected by love
Today I’m back to community and a quote from “Irresistible Revolution.” As a reminder to what has been previously written, many red flags popped up during my reading of “Irresistible Revolution” based on some scripture interpretation and other ideas that Claiborne pushes in his book. But I’d prefer to talk with you in person about those. Trying to explain that stuff in a blog post will never come across correctly. All that to say, here’s one section from the book that rocked me:
When the church becomes a place of brokerage rather than an organic community, she ceases to be the bride of Christ. The church becomes a distribution center, a place where the poor come to get stuff and the rich come to dump stuff. Both go away satisfied (the rich feel good, the poor get clothed and fed), but no one leaves transformed. No radical new community is formed. And Jesus did not set up a program but modeled a way of living that incarnated the reign of God, debts are forgiven just as we forgive our debtors (all economic words). That reign did not spread through organizational establishments or structural systems. It spread like disease–through touch, through breath, through life. It spread through people infected by love.
Let that break over you for a minute, especially that last comment, “Infected by love.”
Seeing a problem should invoke this response, “I need to meet that need.” Perhaps it is through immediately serving the person in need because you have been uniquely gifted to meet a need (which is a whole new post, but the point being, you should know how your gifted so that you can meet needs [which applies just as much to churches as it does individuals]). Or perhaps it means you gather those people in your network that you know can meet the need.
What it should not invoke necessarily is, “I’ll just call the local church office and ask them to meet it.” Sometimes this is a necessary response because of the protections the local body has in a legal sense, and sometimes because the need you see is a great need that only going through the local body to get connected to enough people will you be able to gather all the resources to meet a need. But I’m convinced, most needs are not this way. I have encountered few situations where my family and my close friends that I share life with have not been able to respond to the issue. The question remains, will we be bold enough and will we be obedient?
The last comment referencing boldness and obedience is what is hampering most of us from living out that organic community lifestyle that responds to the needs of people around us. Far too often we live in fear and disobedience and turn to the “professionals.” The problem with this is that its antithetical to what we are taught in Scripture, and furthermore, it is a slap in the face to Jesus who says, “I’m am sending Holy Spirit to come along side of you, He will help you, and you will do even greater things than these that you have seen.” (I’m combining a few statements there, I recognize that). I want to be a part of a movement that helps turn the local body of Christ into a place of empowerment where we remind people of what Paul writes in Colossians when he encourages the Believers that meet there by saying you “have Christ in the you, the hope of glory.” What more power do you need? This is about you going, doing, serving and loving. We are all equal in his eyes: equally responsible to spread the hope of Christ, equally responsible to meet the needs of the broken, equally responsible to teach according to Scripture, equally called to live in community meeting the needs not only of the world but of those whom we call brothers and sisters in Christ, equally called to love because we have all have an equal share of the Spirit empowering us to live radically for the sake of the gospel.
Help me live it today.
