Irreplaceable Community
“The Bible knows nothing of solitary religion.” _John Wesley
Let us remember that we are in this together. We cannot do this thing called religion, or whatever you wish to call it, on our own. The lie that says we can indeed do it alone is deceptive enough to drive us from the church, from the community we need so badly, and from the corporate worship from which all our energy for individual worship must come. We come up with whatever excuse, from the very casual... "I'm just so busy" or "well I don't need to go to church because I read the Bible enough on my own" or "I don't really like the pastor very much so I'll wait until they get a new one"... to the very philosophical... "the world is my church" or "institutionalized religion wants me to think I need to be there on Sunday morning but I don't have any spiritual need for it." But in the end the spiritual discipline of corporate celebration/worship/discipleship is irreplaceable. Community, however uncomfortable it can get, is what calls us outside ourselves and into the movement of love we call the gospel. Let us continue, as we should, to rethink how we do church and community but let us never abandon it for the deception of prideful solitude.
Let us remember that we are in this together. We cannot do this thing called religion, or whatever you wish to call it, on our own. The lie that says we can indeed do it alone is deceptive enough to drive us from the church, from the community we need so badly, and from the corporate worship from which all our energy for individual worship must come. We come up with whatever excuse, from the very casual... "I'm just so busy" or "well I don't need to go to church because I read the Bible enough on my own" or "I don't really like the pastor very much so I'll wait until they get a new one"... to the very philosophical... "the world is my church" or "institutionalized religion wants me to think I need to be there on Sunday morning but I don't have any spiritual need for it." But in the end the spiritual discipline of corporate celebration/worship/discipleship is irreplaceable. Community, however uncomfortable it can get, is what calls us outside ourselves and into the movement of love we call the gospel. Let us continue, as we should, to rethink how we do church and community but let us never abandon it for the deception of prideful solitude.