I believe we seek community when we come together as a church body.
One dictionary defines “community” as “a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals’’.
We gather on Sundays looking for a refinement of the definition of our common goals that are grounded in the example of Jesus. I have become more and more interested in searching for a simple message of what it means to live a Christian life – the “default” when trying to determine what to do, what attitude to take, how best to relate to people, how best to do community.
See John 13: 34-35 (NRSV)
34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
That last verse reminds me of the words in the hymn “. . . and they’ll know we are Christians by our love . . .”
The ways of expressing love for one another have narrowed – phone calls and electronic methods now rule the day – but we are adjusting. We cannot yet get together in the ways we would like, but the church endures because we each hold fast to each other through these newly necessary means of expressing love for each other.
George Cowden