Thoughts on and Longings for the Beautiful Community of the Church

"Church" in the Bible is actually "ekklesia" in the greek meaning assembly/the gathered ones. Through the NT writers direction, church is the gathering of believers for the sharing of life and worship of God (both in corporate liturgical worship and the corporate living wholly for God).

The thing that strikes me about many who object to seeing the church in this way is that so many of them seem so caught up into American individualism that they fail to see God's enormous blessing that the Scripture promises (Ps 133) for being a part of a vital community of believers (admittedly most American churches lack both the real vitality and real community) and of God's calling to be a part of a larger body to worship God (John 17:20-24; 1Pet 2:4-10).

How can we exhibit the unity that Jesus is praying for, the barrier-breaking unity that Jesus says will testify to the reality of the Gospel (Jn 17.20-26), if we just get together with a couple of our friends who we naturally like or who are just like us.?

I will be the first to agree that many corporate gatherings (churches) have become emptied out of what God intended it to be.

But one thing is clear throughout Scripture that God calls us to worship Him corporately (Ps 92, 84, 1Pet 2:4-10) and more than that to be a corporate witness of love and grace and truth (John 17:20-24, 1Pet 2:4-10). Too often people have taken the "where two or three are gathered" and used that to say that is corporate worship. That verse is actually talking about church discipline and refers to the witnesses necessary to represent God before another believer who is living in sin. The Scriptures really aren't interested in setting up a strict guideline for how many qualify as a gathering, but the nature of corporate gatherings from the Bible would definitely point us that this gathering should be larger than an individual or than an individual family.
Not only is this where God's call is, but being a part of biblical community of real relationships, real worship, real engagement with God, church-being (as Marva Dawn calls it), what God has intended the church to be, is the greatest privilege and blessing that we can receive here on earth, the only real and enduring taste of heaven when we can find it.

Ps 133 "Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity.... for there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore."

I am a pastor and I ache for these real relationships, real engagement, and real worship here in Shreveport. I have experienced this in the past and am pursuing it whole-heartedly here. As for me, I will pour out my life in pursuing real community and self-sacrificial sharing in worship that I might join together with others to reflect God's only-Gospel-possible glory and that I might drink deeply from the blessings found there.

May we seek out churches, other believers, and pastors, who are desiring and pursuing God's call for the church. We who earnestly hunger for this must join together in being the church! May God provide this for you.