Here is a lengthy quote my pastor had on his outline from Marva Dawn:
Too often the concept of community is perceived merely in terms of feeling coziness with God or compatibility with other members of the congregation. To reduce the importance of genuine community on the part of God's people to such emotions or sentiments is terribly destructive. Often the result is the formation of an elitist "in" group or narcissism that takes the focus off God...[C]ontemporary images of community...emphasizes "sameness, closeness, warmth, and comfort. Difference, distance, conflict, and sacrifice are alien to this approach and therefore are to be avoided at all costs. Modern communities maintain a facade of unity and harmony by eliminating the strange and cultivation the familiar, by suppressing dissimilarity and emphasizing agreement...Those who are strange - other than we are - are either excluded or quickly made like us." The results are homogeneous communities of retreat where persons must be pretected from one another as well as from outsiders, and where reality is suppressed and denied due to fear and anxiety. Community in the Biblical sense is more open to the realities of differences, more openly gracious to all, more deliberate, and act of the will. It does not depend upon feelings of affection. In fact, sometimes (perhaps always?) God seems to put us in a community together with people whom we don't like so that we learn the real meaning of agape - that intelligent, purposeful love directed toward another's need in which comes first from God and then flows through us to our neighbor. To develop a community that practices Biblical principles is very difficult in this technologically efficient society. It takes a lot of work and time, sacrifice and commitment.I am beginning to see some relationships form with others who aren't like me, but there is a difference between relationships and community. On the other hand, I see a lot of the false community in the youth group I volunteer with. The high school group is growing out of it, but I have seen the last few classes to graduate with this false sense of what community should be.
Maybe it's just something that I quickly point out because I don't want to see the same that is happening in me. However, I have had discussions with some of those graduates who express that they haven't been able to find the right church or this or that that arises from not understanding what true community should be. In the high school group, I see groups where outsiders are either not let in or forced to change in order to get in. The result? A homogeneous community of retreat. And I have seen this community fail when true community would uplift.
I think this just happens in high school. It happens everywhere, but more prevalent in high school. I saw it when I was in high school. Maybe that is part of the reason I was a "floater" - I would float between groups, never hanging out with one exclusively. I saw the groups I was floating between were each homogeneous in its own right. I'm sure I adapted and changed to "fit in."
The college groups of which I am a part are more on track for that eclectic community that brings together different people. With a big senior class about to move into the college group, I am worried about what will happen when one class more than doubles the college group. They have some growing up to do (as I did at that age, and we all still do!), and I hope they don't just take over.
Enough venting and enough reading. G'day.
