Yes, We are Created for Community.

This morning, I was walking to my 9am class (yes, the same one I woke up an hour early for some weeks ago except this time I was on time), I was thinking about how our Christianity has become very private and individualistic especially in this culture. Our Christianity has become mainly about ourselves, while others around in our communities and churches are hardly involved in our spiritual lives and vice versa. Yes, being a Christian is having a personal loving relationship with God but it is also having a loving relationship with other Christians. My thoughts always go to community when I come across this topic. I think about the community of the 1^st Century Christians who lived in dependence on each other, eating together and meeting each other’s needs physically and spiritually (Acts 2:42-47). 

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer points out in his book Life Together, “Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ.” So this means, as Bonhoeffer goes on later to explain that “Christians need others because of Christ Jesus.” We need each other because first “what God did to us, we then owed to others”, meaning we are all bringers of the message of salvation and forgiveness to each other. Secondly, we are humans and some days we need “our brothers and sisters as bearers and proclaimers of the divine word of salvation” in our lives. We are to relate to each other in the way the 1^st Century Christians did, breaking bread, praising God together and enjoying the favor of all the people (Acts 2:42-47).  We are one body in Christ (Romans 12:5) and we need each other. And yes, we are created for community.