Going To The Root was published in 1992 by Christian Smith and is full of wisdom and great insight. This will be my first of two excerpts from the book.
Discipleship stands at the heart of Christian community. We do not build community primarily for emotional intimacy and social support – although we do experience those things in community. Rather, we build community primarily to follow Christ and to more faithfully and effectively allow God to reign in our lives. That is what makes these communities Christian ones and not just social clubs.
Christianity is a corporate as well as an individual faith. Becoming like Christ is a relational as well as personal process. For this reason, God calls believers to make their faith-journeys together, in small bands of people called “church.” For our own well-being and growth, we need the benefit of each others’ spiritual gifts, encouragements, role modeling, and challenges.
It is largely by sharing our lives in relationship together over time that God strengthens our faith, builds our character, and shapes us into the people we are meant to be. This makes sense, since most Christian virtues and fruits of the Spirit to which we are called-love, service, gentleness, humility, self-giving, patience, kindness, forgiveness-are expressed in relationships, not in isolation.
A key aspect of discipleship in Christian community is personal accountability. In community, we learn to be accountable. We learn, literally, to give an account to others. Accountability means that we can ask each other what is going on in our lives, how we are doing, or what is the state of our souls. And we can expect an honest answer.
Accountability also means that we can confront each other and be reconciled when we disappoint, anger, or hurt each other. Finally, accountability means that when we live irresponsibly or sinfully, we can admonish each other without fear of ruining our relationships.
Accountability in community rejects Lone Ranger Christianity. It repudiates privatized, individualistic faith. Accountability instead acknowledges our human and spiritual interdependence. It admits that our actions and attitudes affect each other deeply. We thus have a basic responsibility to each other.
Accountability recognizes that believers need each other’s help and support in pursuing the kingdom of God. It knows we all have blind spots that others we know and trust can help us with. Being accountable means not saying “Mind your own business” but being instead willing to work through issues and problems until we reach unity and love.Being held accountable is often difficult. Holding another accountable can be even harder. Accountability is unnatural for those of us raised in an individualistic, freedom-oriented, North American culture. Accountability is not an attempt to bully or police each other, however. It simply aims to build responsible, loving relationships in the context of Christian discipleship. Although accountability may not be quickly mastered, it can be learned through practice aided by God’s grace and the community’s support. And when accountability is exercised correctly, it is not a chore, but a deeply rewarding means to strengthen relationships and foster human growth.
In community, believers gradually relearn how to relate to each other according to the principles of the kingdom of God. They learn, for example, how to really love and serve each other in concrete ways, how to support each other in difficult times. They learn how to admonish and forgive each other for hurts or sins. They learn how to share their resources, and how together to minister God’s mercy and love to broken people in a broken world.
Gradually, as believers learn these things, their communities develop distinct ways of life. They acquire particular patterns of social relations visibly different from those practiced by people in the larger world. The community then becomes a new social reality in which the kingdom of God is expressed, not only in the actions and attitudes of its individuals, but in the culture and social relations of a whole body of people.
By simply living out concrete, alternative social realities, informed by an alternative set of spiritual values, Christian communities witness to the breaking of the kingdom of God into history. By simply being the people of God in this way, communities stand as concrete signs that God is indeed transforming this world by his love and mercy.
Hence, living in Christian community is both a necessary means for pursuing Christian discipleship and the natural result of a body of people shaping their lives according to God’s kingdom. Christian community is, in this sense, both the path and the destination for believers.
Christian Smith, Going to the Root
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