A Real Community in A Real World

Field Notes From a Religion-Less Christian

February 2, 2023

A Real Community in a Real World

A friend of mine, going through a rough patch in his life, posted recently to his social media friends, referring to them and others in his life: “I can’t imagine being in a world without the beloved community of Jesus.” So, the question I learned long ago, that is a good one to query each of us about our faith in God through Jesus Christ, is to me still good today: “What is it about your experience of Jesus that the world cannot live without?”

Pointed enough. Simple enough.

Personal: “your.”

Existential and Tangible: “experience.”

Global: “world.”

Evangelical (we need to reclaim this word from the conservative church today): “Jesus.”

 Years ago, 1999 to be exact, as a pastor in the business of church then for 18 years, I went on a vocational discernment retreat to help me figure out if I wanted to stay in the business. Being a pastor is not easy. By that time I was in my second job (in the church life we name these positions as a pastor a “Call,” which is honest and accurate enough, but we hold that every person’s, not simply the ordained,  work is a “calling” from God) and had presided over 12 years of congregational decline in a “changing community” and was about 2 years into the new mission development of the same congregation after selling the church property and moving to renting worship space in a local elementary school as we figured out how to be church in a new way and new location. I learned mission development by the seat of my pants. As invigorating and enlivening as all of this was, I was genuinely wondering if I wanted to keep it up. I wasn’t burned out, but I was tired, if not exhausted, and the toll on my family life was constant enough as to be rubbing life the wrong way.

So, on this “vocational discernment” retreat the focus was on, rightly so, the foundational piece for all of us that must be laid out before a person can start honestly and healthily looking at particular jobs or careers: what is my life’s love? In other words, what do I care most about that I want to do something about? In the parlance of that retreat: what is my life’s mission? I walked away from those few days in retreat and reflection work with this: Building Authentic Community.

 Lots of questions arise, to be sure: What is “community?” What is “authentic”? What is “building?” You can rest assured I could tell you lots about the background content and meaning of those words for me. I won’t tell you all of that (you are welcome!).

I did go back to work as a parish pastor (“parish” sounds a bit old fashioned, I know, but I like the alliteration!). I was re-energized with a renewed focus. That new focus ended up being a sound-track running in the background of what I was doing in my church leadership: working to develop and sustain, build, an authentic community in Christ. I kept at it for years, had another significant hiatus from being a regular parish pastor as I did some significant work in field and lab research in plant sciences (my undergraduate degree was in environmental science) as well as Interim Pastor work, and then finished my working Pastor career with years again as a full-time parish pastor. And all that time the “building authentic community” kept its grip and provided focus and direction.

 And it still does. I am rewired now (yes, retired, but I like the sense that “rewire” brings). And I am still looking to see how I can contribute to how the church of Jesus Christ can be that place of authentic community.

 Toward that definition of just what “authentic community” is and can be, I found years ago in a study on contemporary ecclesiology a description of what then was called “the emerging church.” The author said that the three main characteristics of this so-called “emerging church” were 1) a merging of the sacred and the secular; the blurring of the lines of a distinct bifurcation so that the eternal was recognized in all things temporal 2) the focus of attention more on the life and teachings of Jesus than on his death and resurrection 3) the serious and intentional commitment to care-taking of individuals and families in the church community, not to exclusion of others, but with solid and tangible support of one another in all circumstances. While each of those characteristics cannot and should not go without caution and critique, especially #2 concerning somehow considering Jesus’ life and teaching as a separate entity from his death and resurrection, I could see then (again, years ago!) and still now how this might be a fair way to describe, if not what church is or should be, but then at least what people are looking for: a way to navigate the many dimensions of their life with an integration of God and faith in all of it, not separate from it; a way to engage Jesus in a practical manner; a way to have friends where friends are not simply acquaintances but are people who would go to the mat for you.

I’m reminded of something Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote while in prison at about the time he was naming his thinking more explicitly about how the church had to become religion-less; how Christianity had to become religion-less. I find myself turning to these words a lot in my thinking as to what the church today needs to do to get a new grounding in this new day:

“What we imagine a God could and should do – the God of Jesus Christ has nothing to do with all that. We must immerse ourselves, again and again, for a long time and quite calmly, in Jesus’ life, his sayings, actions, suffering and dying in order to recognize what God promises and fulfills.”

Church renewal today, I have long contended, has nothing to do with trying to make more shiny and attractive a dying cultural artifact. Getting at and getting to Jesus is the key (and yes, as with #2 above, the ethical teachings of Jesus are key for practicalities but notice Bonhoeffer’s words: “suffering and dying,” and, I would add: rising).

 So, with those three “emerging church” descriptives and Bonhoeffer’s words setting a bit of a framework, the other day I jotted down some more characteristics of just what an “authentic community” could be:

People who:

- live with clear-eyed honesty about failure, loss and death

-receive the Spirit of God as encouraging, not excluding and judging

-understand the importance and significance of boundaries and definitions of roles and responsibilities and living with financial and legal integrity

-practice sustainability in stewardship of natural resources

-practice inclusion of all and discrimination of none

-engage injustice and violence with non-violent resistance

 What would you change or add or subtract to my list?

 What I list here are not so much what the church does but how the church does what it does. Not so much mission as values.

 What is your church like?

 What do you want your church to do (mission) and how do you want it to do it (values)?

 What are you doing to help make that happen?

 I invite you to engage and answer the question “what is it about your experience with Jesus that the world cannot live without?” And when you answer that, then this: how is your church living out that experience and how is your church building authentic community?

 My friend can’t imagine being in the world without church, without “the beloved community of Jesus.” Would that more people could feel that, say that, know that, live that.