Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Communal Musings

I've been thinking a lot this year about community, and what it would look like to be the ideal community within the context of Christ.
some things that i think are required:
  1. love of everyone, especially those that are not necessarily in the community. The love your neighbor as yourself is not an invitation towards gated communities (whether metaphorical or real)
  2. acceptance of everyone. everyone is invited into the community, no one excluded.
  3. in the community, you shouldn't be afraid to be yourself, your heart should be safe, but more than that (in Andi's words) known, served, loved and celebrated.
    1. you should be free to know, love, serve and celebrate the other hearts in your community as well.
  4. the community is the kingdom of God.
  5. Therefore, it is what we are called to live our lives towards.
  6. I don't think there should be any form of hierarchy in community, and the implications of this are where I'm running into confusion.
If I am actively attempting to love, then who do I share my secrets with? Where is the line between sharing where i am right now and gossip? How many people do I tell my current woes to? How do I balance being Real and being a force of joy when I feel less than joyful? How do I serve and lead without either of those vocations becoming masks I can put on at will? How do I humbly lead people in the direction that I think we should be going (ie, towards a more loving community)? How does this work when I am feeling inadequate or excluded from another group?
In Young Life, we talked about Jesus' method of discipleship: preaching/healing of the masses, teaching and spending years with the twelve, and having as close companions/explaining the nitty gritty with just 3. The level of investment increases with the decrease in group size.
But how does this translate to my life now?
How do we live together as lovers of Christ (and some not), without the hierarchy of in-groups? How do we avoid the temptation to catagorize on _____-enough terms. How do we avoid judging in order to make ourselves feel better? How do we love untaintedly? How do we live with people who think they are better than us? or inwardly convinced they'll never be as good as us no matter how hard they try?
How do I, as a beloved daughter of Christ, live humbly in such a way that he is apparent and my community is blessed through me? (blessing of abraham, we're talking about it in shalom)
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We talked about the parable of the yeast amongst the bread in class today briefly. And how the entire loaf rises from a tiny bit of yeast. The flour doesn't really have any choice in the matter. And I think its interesting to contemplate oneself as yeast, but equally possible that one is just flour being risen by a piece of yeast a thousand particles away. There would be no way of really knowing. I'm not quite done with my contemplation of this parable, but it caught my fancy.
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These are my thoughts for now.

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