“The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Being called to live in community is one of the great invitations of the Christian faith, yet living in community also produces some of the most challenging aspects of the Christian life.

Whether we like it or not, life in community is not an add-on feature to our already-complete, neatly-packaged personal holiness- the gospel does not call us to a life of spiritual individualism and social isolation, but to a communal pilgrimage through our collective brokenness and the messiness of shared experience.

Christianity is not a solitary religion- we are called to walk this life of faith together.

I believe one of the blessings of this community relationship we are called to share is that believers are entrusted with a common vocabulary. Words that seem idealistic or even corny in the “real world” hold deep and abiding significance for those seeking to faithfully follow Jesus.

Joy, mercy, sacrifice, and commitment can be experienced by all people, but the believer recognizes God as the source of these and seemingly countless other virtues.

Broader society may acknowledge grace, compassion, and love, but the disciple of Jesus knows more than the intellectual definition of these words- he or she knows the One who personifies of these concepts as the divine Source of everything good, right, and true.

In addition to giving us an experienced terminology for understanding of the virtues found in God, the Christian community provides us with a unique bond of fellowship.

Wherever Christians go in the world, they already have a spiritual family awaiting them.

Anywhere we find disciples of Jesus, we have the ability to share an immediate intimacy that serves as a comfort and blessing. Whether we come together on the mission field, in the chapel of the local funeral home, at our children’s summer camp, or in a passing incident of daily life, Christians have a bond that is able- when faithfully applied- to transcend the outward divisions of race, gender, economics, politics, or age. The ability to pray for each other, to comfort each other, and to worship together greatly shapes the Christian experience.

We are to be the gathering of the redeemed- existing across and above life’s many external barriers.

As the song states, we share, “a common love for each other, a common gift to the Savior, a common bond holding us to the Lord, a common strength when we’re weary, a common hope for tomorrow, a common joy in the truth of God’s word.”

As we consider the implications of the Christian experience, one of the foremost blessings that we share is a sense of a mutual destiny.

In a world where we are often lulled into the comfortable complacency of daily life, we are to remind each other that our ultimate reality and ultimate hope of victory are not tied exclusively to the here and now.

While neither ignoring nor excusing the ever-present need for greater compassion and justice in our troubled world, believers are called to look beyond today’s headlines to the glory that awaits us as children of God.

By looking toward our grace-fueled, glorified future, we are empowered to live faithfully as we seek to share Christ’s love today.

This certainty of the future should dictate how we live day by day- not with our heads in the clouds ignoring suffering and strife, but with our hands active in service seeking to share the glory we have already tasted in Jesus.

Our life together as disciples of Jesus is marked with manifold blessings- a common vocabulary, a shared fellowship, and a united hope of salvation that spans geography, time, and outward differences.

Through His grace, our Father offers these gifts to each of us if we have hearts willing to receive them.