the church as community

All the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity – all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved. (Acts 2:44-47)

We went to the mall in Columbia yesterday. As I was walking around it dawned on me why I like to go to the mall.

We went a lot in Lincoln. It was close and it was free and I got to sit and look at people and also walk around in an are where the wind wasn’t blowing 30 mph or it wasn’t 30 degrees below zero. Those are not fun and a place to get me out of them is good.

But as I walked around, I was looking at all the people and I felt a sense, although admittedly artificial, of community.

That is what malls bring: community. They are the new main street in our culture today. In a small town, people still gather downtown and sit and talk. But in a larger town, they do not.

The mall provides that sense of community. But as I was there, it dawned on me that I would rather be with other Christians doing something. It dawned on me that we do not do enough stuff together as Christians.

I used to read the blog of a man in another town, I believe Cleveland, it has been a while. He and his wife both died of cancer.

But he had a ministry in downtown in a large two story storefront. He had made it into a community. It was a church, and a coffeehouse, and a library and a visiting and meeting place for his group.

He and his family lived on the second floor. He made the comment that no matter what time of night or day, he could go downstairs and there would be someone to talk to, someone to visit with.

It sounded great and I tried my level best to achieve that end in the town where I planted a church. It didn’t work for me. But it did for him.

As I was walking through the mall, I told Ella that the model he had given was exactly what I thought church should be. We just do not get together enough. We do not hang around together enough. We really do not know each other that well to want to hang around together.

It is a shame. After all that is what Christians do. They hang around together.

And it is the hanging around together that makes them strong. It is impossible to be connected to people you do not know, at least not in any real meaningful sense.

We do not hang around together enough. There ought to be some situation, some place we can go almost any time and find people there.

I remember at one church I pastored, for a while people just hung around the church. Someone made the comment that you never knew who was going to be there. And it was great.

Sure it is hard for the pastor to get any studying done, but there are more important things than having a well put together sermon. There is life and association and being together. There is bonding and hanging around together. There is getting to know each other. There is being connected on a level greater than Sunday or even Wednesday.

We do not have a Wednesday service so we go from Sunday to Sunday without seeing those who are supposed to be our spiritual family. We do have the two Sunday meetings and that is good. At the evening class thing, we always have something to eat and it is highly informal which brings out a lot of great interchange among each other.

But there is still Monday through Saturday.

That sure is a void in our association. And I just miss people, Christian people. I also kind of hate to have to go to the mall to get that sense of community, and an artificial one at that.