Community

"In the beginning there was the Word and the Word was with God..." (Jn 1:1).  "And God said, 'Let us make man in our image'"(Gen 1:26).  What is clear from these passages is that the One God exists in community.  And when he made man, "in his image," he said, "it is not good for man to be alone" (Gen 2:18).  Man too was to exist in community - we are designed for it.

Mankind has always existed in communities, only community hasn't always looked the same.  In America, our communities began in very rural settings, revolving around the family farm where children were born and tended to stay with the land.  Multiple generations could be found on one property, even in one house (kind of like the old TV series "The Waltons").

As the Industrial Revolution took hold, people moved into cities and their neighborhoods became their communities.  The shopped in the local store, kids went to the same school and families attended the same church.  Houses were designed with front porches close to the street, where neighbor's could stop by and chat in the cool of the evening.  Fences were built low to allow neighbors to talk as they worked in the back yard.  Neighbor's knew each other intimately.

Today, houses are built back from the street and the front porch has given way to the back deck, where people sit behind tall fences, built to insulate them from their neighbors.  We live in a time where we can walk into our garage, pull out in the morning and pull back in after work without ever having to see or talk to our neighbors.  People today are hard pressed to even name their neighbors, let alone have intimate knowledge of them.

Community today has moved to the market place, to where we work.  There we form friendships, there we have intimate knowledge of one another, there we share a portion of our lives.  For children, it is primarily in their schools, their market place.  Christians find community in the Church.  There they have friends they can depend on and call on in times of need.  And, they have close friends who they spend time with outside the four walls of the church building.

We have another community for many, which exists in cyberspace,  Face Book is the new town square and many spend hours daily communicating with "friends," many of whom they never actually see.  Some of those relationships develop to physical time and space, and some even get married to their cyber-friend, in real time and space.  It's a brave new world Ollie.

What this means to those interested in sharing their faith is that their neighborhood is no longer the most fertile field.  You are more likely to have the kind of relationship that allows for such an intimate talk as faith away from where you actually live.  Where you work, go to school or even do business offer much more opportunity than the subdivision where you live.

In the modern community, we still can follow the ancient command, "Go into all the world and teach everyone" (Mk 16:15).  I like to paraphrase this verse: "As you are going, wherever you are going, share your faith along the way."  Times have changed, community has changed but our need to exist in and share in community have not.  Jus' Say'n.