When Community Is Bad!

“Community” is one of those buzz words that pastors and churches through around often, I know myself to have overly used it without understanding it. There is good reason that the subject of “community” has become so popular: community is a good thing! Who doesn’t love fellowship, companionship, mutual encouragement and building up? And, furthermore, community is a Biblical concept too! Paul rebukes those who have forsaken the assembly, as does the apostle John. And Jesus clearly created a community among his followers and called them to spread the gospel and build communities, Paul’s missionary journies reveal the types of communities he built all over. But there is a misconception, I believe, and a danger associated with the modern evangelical conecpt of community.

The problem is that many churches and pastors have made “community” the end-all. They beleive that if they create the right kind of community then people will come to their churches, members will stay in their churches, and growth, of both a numerical and spiritual kind, will inevitably happen. The problem with this idea is that community can only exist for so long around an amorphous union. By focusing on community and making community the end all these churches loose the real mission of Jesus and eventually they find that their community can not sustain itself. An alternative, and I believe the Biblical one, is to focus on the mission of the church and to emphasize that mission in specific details. Around this concept a community will inevitably be built up and sustain.

You see people need a goal, a purpose, and community is not a purpose it is a result of being brought together over a great cause, a great mission, a great task! Think of soldiers; they have a special kind of community because of their mutual mission. Think of survivors; they have a special kind of community because they have been through a serious trial together with the common goal of surviving. My favorite picture of this is from the movie The Lord of the Rings where we find the Fellowship bonded together over one common goal – to destroy the ring. This is clearly seen in the final film where the Hobbits have returned home and as they sip their ale the share a knowing look with one another. While the people around them party and celebrate as if nothing important has ever taken place in their lives, the four Hobbits have reached and attained a real community built upon their common goal and adventure.

When “building community” is the end all of the church not only is the true purpose and mission of the church lost but the potential for lasting and real community is diminished. Only by centralizing a people around the radical call of Jesus can community thrive! We are a community built, then, upon the mission of Jesus!