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10/26/2006 7:52:55 PM

kcstrobel

42 posts

Community Growth
(United Kingdom)

This is more of a question for continuing dialogue more than anything else, but I just wanted to throw out the question of community growth. What could it look like to have a community of people growing spiritually without giving up any of the classic Christian marks of a church? I'm not totally against giving those up, but it seems like the first question should include those things, things like biblical preaching, understanding of creeds, etc. Is there something fundamentally wrong with our model of church, or are we just missing an essential element to it?, may be the best way to ask this question. Any thoughts?

10/28/2006 11:52:01 AM

aphekah

16 posts

Re: Community Growth
(United Kingdom)

Well, I guess if you are going to ask that question, you should probably also ask if community growth is the goal of the church. If you say it is THE goal then that is going to change the direction you take compared to if you think God's glory is the goal. Does that make sense? In this way, we have to start with the purpose of the church, or so it seems to me, in order to answer the question about the various tasks and roles in the church and whether or not they are important.

10/29/2006 11:02:39 PM

Henri

28 posts

Re: Community Growth
(United Kingdom)

I think there are a ton of great questions here - maybe too much to wrap our minds around for the time being. Lets just start with the assumption that community growth is a central aspect of the church - regardless of whether it is THE central aspect. In response to the initial post, is there anything in our churches today that seems to get in the way of this kind of growth, and I think that is an important place to sit for a while.

First, it seems that growth in general, with the individual is pretty neglected. As Bonhoeffer states in Life Together, the two most dangerous people for the church are those who cannot be alone and those who cannot be in community. We need to beware of those who have to solely focus on individual formation, and those who solely focus on community formation - but also, and maybe more importantly, those who don't care to focus on either. I think that is the greatest and most fundamental problem in the church today - that our people just do not see real growth in the Spirit to be a part of the Christian life. The problem is the horizon which we are aimed to - is has to deal with being a nice person, and not a holy person, and sadly, our church seems to mimic that with our focus on programs, buildings, and Sunday mornings.

10/30/2006 1:57:44 AM

tlc

1 posts

Re: Community Growth
(United States)

Simply for continued dialogue. It was at a halloween party, just the other night, standing around talking about church with some close friends, when a well known pastor walked up to us and asked, "What do you guys do to get this kind of community here?" A question I feel like most of us who have been around the church at all have answers to, but what I wonder is if we actually believe them? One of the gentleman i was standing next to, who happens to be the leader of this particular group simply said, "the Holy Spirit." This pastor took a step back and said and I quote, "Yeah, yeah, I know, but what do you do to get this kind of community?" If we take away all of the programs, buildings, persuasive messages, and entertainment, and we are simply left with broken people, the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, do we actually believe that spiritual growth will come? Is this essential element that we all "know," simply openness to the work of the Spirit? Or possibly what we are missing is an understanding of the Holy Spirit? Do we believe that He is truly the instrument of change?

10/30/2006 6:58:01 AM

KevinK

6 posts

Re: Community Growth
(United States)

I would say that there is a convoluted understanding of the Holy Spirit, among other things, these days. And of course every denomination belives their understanding of the Holy Spirit is more correct than the other guys'. It seems that most people fall into one extreme category or the other; Pentacostal (when I think of this I imagine people barking and having seizures for Jesus) or Holy Spirit atheists (those who perhaps acknowledge the H.S. theolgically, but have no earthly idea of His function, purpose, or import.) And often, these two extremes seem to the a reaction against the other. I think, as with most things, the truth lies somewhere in between. We can speculate as to the cause of this confusion (lack of biblical preaching, hard-heartedness, bad theology, etc.) but my guess is that if we have a more robust understanding of essential issues like pneumatology (what and how the Holy Spirit works), things like community will fall into place more readily. Although, on the other side of the coin, can we truly understand the H.S. from a book, or must we rely on resources like community to show us who the H.S is and how is is working? Does theolgy become real without people living it out? Chicken or the egg, I suppose. Any ideas?

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