What's a community?

Community: A group with common goals & desires; a group of people living in a particular local area; a group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other .

In life, we all look for community of some kind. People to talk to, share with, find love from. Its a basic human desire to be with other people. For some that might meabn large and diverse groups, for others much smaller and comfortable groups. We find it in family, sporting teams, work colleagues, friends, and in other groups that we may join in our lives.

For many, it's found in church. Our church is spending the next few months specifically looking at how to grow a strong community within our walls, and hwo to better associate with the wider community outside it. I think this is great. This year our church community has grown in big big ways.

But I'm niggled by something - while we are growing as a community, are we growing as a Christian community? Are we just a big club, where 'we're just members of a system that has rules that make us feel comfortable', a group of people who like the niceness, and trust, and good moral values that come from being a Christian? True believers and followers of Jesus should be more than just a good strong community. It's gotta be more. No-one can have a real encounter with the son of God and walk away from it unchanged.