Community Part 2

From the being of time, humanity has been trying to fix itself.   Humans are trying to make things right in the different communities that they have destroyed. Environmentalists try desperately to reconcile the environment. Animal rights activists try to reconcile the animal kingdom to the human kingdom.  Psychologists try to reconcile man to each other. Ultimately, humankind is on a quest to reconcile itself to God.

What we don’t realize is that God is the only one who can reconcile man to Himself.  If you read the New Testament, you will quickly see that the early church believed that God did reconcile the world to himself in the person of Jesus.  The narrative goes something like this: God sends his son Jesus to earth as a man, fully man and fully God, to die on the cross for our sins; to make right what was made wrong. On the third day, Jesus rose from the dead and he went home to prepare a place for us.   One of the interesting things about this narrative is that Jesus doesn’t choose Rambo to pass on his story and its reconciling power.  He passes the baton to the disciples - these 12 men who followed him for at least three years. He passes it on to a community, and he entrusts this group of men to move the gospel forward.

If you look at the gospel of John, the last of the four gospels in the New Testament, in particular John 13:34, you get this small indication of what Jesus thought about how this gospel was going to go forward. In verse 34 he says “A new command I give unto you, love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this shall all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

How are people going to know Jesu? They are going to know Jesus and know you as followers of Him by the way you interact with each other and the way you interact in community. Community is an interesting word. If God is entrusting us the church, the ecclesia, the community, with the gospel, with this reconciliation, this offering of Jesus’ victories to the world so they can be reconciled to God so they can be made right, so they can have perfect relationships with God. What is this word community because community is not in the bible? There idea of community is prevalent within the New Testament and the Old Testament but the word itself does not exist, so what is community?

To have community, you have to have something in common. Think about it in basketball terms. There are a bunch of guys who like basketball so they have the game of basketball in common.  Most likely, they will play basketball together, or at least they will watch basketball. There are two parts to community. First, what we have in common, and second, the response to what we have in common.

It might sound kind of silly to ask, what does the church have in common? What does the community of faith - followers of Jesus - have in common with itself? That should be obvious in the name - Jesus is who we have in common, but do we truly grasp the depth of this statement?

If we have Jesus in common, how should we respond to him?  Acts chapter two verses 38 through 47 offer us a look into how the early church responded to Jesus as a community. Leading up to verse 38, Jesus has given his disciples the command to go preach the gospel to all nations. He has handed off the baton to 120 people who are his close followers. They are waiting, in an upper room of some unnamed building, for the Holy Spirit that Jesus had promised he would send them - the one who was going to help them talk about the gospel.

The Spirit of God shows up in the upper room.  Everyone who was gathered together began to speak many different languages, and they probably didn’t have soundproof walls!  So everybody outside heard it, and they think. “Man, there is a big gigantic party going on in there and everybody’s drunk.” Peter realizes this. He dashes out onto the balcony and he says, “No, we are not drunk” and he preaches the gospel. At the end of his talk, it says, with many other words he warned them and he pleaded with them save yourself from this corrupt generation. Those who have accepted this message were baptized and about 3000 were added to their number that day, so the first church was planted.

Acts is about the being of the early church. Peter oversees the first church being planted after Jesus ascends into heaven - 3000 members.  Peter is the forerunner to Billy Graham.

If you continue to read chapter two, you discover how the early church responded to Jesus. Starting at Verse 42 it states, they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship and to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Stowing their possessions and goods, they gave to everyone as they had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Lord added to their number daily those who are being saved.

How the Song "Trinity" was written

The below article from NT Wright inspired me to write the now "Village infamous Song: Trinity."

Epilogue

The Prayer of the Trinity

(Originally published in New Tasks for a Renewed Church, 1992, London: Hodder.  Also published as Bringing the Church to the World, 1992, Bethany House, U.S.A., 209-15.  Reproduced by permission of the author.)

by Tom Wright

Trinity Sunday

Isaiah 6:1-8; Ephesians 1:3-14; John 14:8-17

I suggested in chapter 13 that there might be different sorts of prayer that could be explored by those seeking appropriate paths of spirituality within the modern world.  In each of the three lectionary readings for Trinity Sunday, the revelation of the threeness of God comes in the context of prayer and worship.  If we are truly speaking of the true God, then the truest form of that speech can never be abstract discussion about God.  It must be speech addressed to God.  It must be worship.  It must be prayer.

I want, in this brief epilogue, to suggest one form of prayer in particular that seems to me to encapsulate all that I have been trying to say.  It grows out of several concerns and backgrounds, and I believe it may be helpful to some who are wrestling with these issues and seeking to do so in a Christian way, that is, not by mere intellectual effort alone, but through prayer, meditation, and a settled and steady seeking of God’s will and way.  I am aware that prayer and temperament are intertwined, and there may well be some who, for perfectly good reasons, will find my suggestions incomprehensible or unnecessary.  I trust that they will excuse this short chapter, and leave it for those who may find something in it to their profit.

Continue reading here

The Village Song Trinity:

A Tribute to my Brother

The Candyman. The chocolate dictator. Ruler of Cobra Commander.

Memories - long hours of building - forts, traps, and weapons. The many uses for duck tape, handcuffs, scorpions. We stood side by side against the tyranny of the desert. We rode our bikes and dug deep into the sand. Underground, we dreamed of worlds that our tire swing could take us.

Music man. Night dweller. Poet and friend. We are not the droids . . . Benji, Benji, Park. The Seattle experience. Great cigarette pics.

Father. Husband. Beautiful family. God seeker. Lover of wife. Rental King. The man of a deal. Provider for the down trodden. Follower of Jesus . . . Gospel man.

Happy Birthday Joel

Eric

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I Failed

I'm sitting in my living room, and I have this inescapable feeling of failure. My sin, my weakness, my selfishness, my shortsightedness has flooded my space with beams of darkness. The dreams that I once dreamed seem careless and poorly constructed. How long Jesus before you return. How long before failure has no impact. It is not my enemies that I am afraid of, its my friends. I dropped my sword. I let my horse run free. I didn't speak when I should have. I didn't risk. Jesus, I need your help. My friends need your help. My church needs your help. We . . . I can't do this without guidance. Father God, you are mighty. You created the earth in all of its beauty. Thank you for my wife. Thank you for my kids. Thank you for my housemates. You placed me in Tucson. You have guided my steps and redeemed my mistakes. Please, heal me. Please, restore the brokenness in my church. Mend the neglected relationships and strengthen the families that are being stretched to the breaking point. Father, restore the dream. Jesus, I'm a sinner. I've kept my mouth shut when I should have said something. I am afraid. I want people to like me. I hate conflict, and I'm self-defensive. Jesus. I want to follow you. Show me what you are doing in my life, in my family, in my friendships, and in my church. Give me the courage to join you in your mission. Holy Spirit, I'm listening. . .

In The Beginning

I'm not much of a writer. I spend most of my time trying not to write. I have a severe learning disability that makes it difficult for me to construct sentences. But recently, I've decided to just put my thoughts out there - in hopes that I might make sense of things.

For the last 9 years of my life I've been a pastor. My church is located in Tucson, and we go by the name - The Village. Being a pastor is an odd job to have because there isn't an "off button" - especially at the Village. Our community is just that, a community. We spend a lot of time together, and people are in and out of each others homes. Early on this was tiring because my house was the main hub for most activities. But things have changed over the years, and we have seen others open their homes and move into neighborhoods together to minister to their friends.

At present, our community is exploring the Gospel as a way of life. With help from people like Tim Keller, churches like Marshill and Soma, and books by Larry Crabb - we wrote a bible study that explores what we call the Three aspects of the Gospel: Story, Identity, Kingdom. Jesus' story being his birth, death, resurrection, and ascension. The Identity being what is given to us as a result of the story, and the Kingdom part is our response to the Story and the Identity given to us - see Romans 12:1.