The Purpose Driven Life - 40 Days of Purpose - Day 19

Day 19- Community requires commitment


Verse - We understand that love is when we realize that Christ give his life for us. That means we must give our lives for other believers. 1 John 3:16

Question to consider - how can I help cultivate today the characteristics of real community in my small group and my church?

Cultivating community takes the following:

Commitment
Honesty
Humility
Courtesy
Confidentiality
Frequency


The following statements stood out to me as I was reading this chapter about each characteristic mentioned above.


HONESTY


We cultivate fellowship in our community with the choices and commitments we make.

You will have to care enough to lovingly speak the truth

Real fellowship depends on frankness

The tunnel of conflict is the passageway to intimacy in any relationship

Thoughtless words leave lasting wounds.


HUMILITY

Self importance, smugness, and stubborn pride destroy fellowship

Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less. Humility is thinking more of others.


COURTESY

Respecting our differences
Considerate of others feelings
Patient with people who irritate us

Community has nothing to do with compatibility
The basis for our fellowship is our relationship to God

CONFIDENTIALITY

Only in a safe environment of warm acceptance and trusted confidentiality will people open up and share their deepest hurts, needs and mistakes.

Gossip is spread by wicked people, they stir up trouble and break friendships. Proverbs 16:28

FREQUENCY

You must have frequent, regular contact with your group in order to build genuine fellowship.

Relationships take time


A small group covenant should include the following characteristics

Share true feelings - authenticity
Encourage each other - mutuality
Support each other - sympathy
Forgive each other - mercy
Speak the truth in love- honesty
Admit our weaknesses - humility
Respect our differences - courtesy
Not gossip - confidentiality
Make the group priority - frequency

Fellowship means giving up our self centeredness and independence in order to become interdependent.

The way that I can cultivate the characteristics of community is by practicing each of them in every relationship that I have. That will take some courage on my part because ti will mean that I will need the Holy Spirit to enlighten me as to which characteristic is missing in the relationships that I have. I will need to practice courtesy with those people who are fearful or scared of going to a deeper level with their relationship. Perhaps I have already been practicing honesty and humility and that might be what scares people off. I desire deep and meaningful relationships. I want to give and encourage others and I need to be willing to receive these characteristics of community in return.

It is always easier to practice these on others but not so fun to allow others to extend the same to me. It is easier to focus on known failures and weaknesses but a bit painful for someone to speak truth about something I am not immediately aware of. Receiving truth into ones soul can take enormous amounts of courage and humility. I feel that I need to grow in the areas of mercy, courtesy and frequency.

As I study this book I am painfully aware that I am lacking in true biblical fellowship or community in my life with regards to a small group or the local church where I serve. Community and biblical fellowship only happens superficially. The largest common denominator for our church body is time. We get together 2 hours per week at the most. You can not expect community or deep meaningful relationships to happen in a corporate environment. I am also reminded of the fact that there is a difference between the attendees at our church and the church membership who have made a commitment to play their part in the ministry at our church.

The scariest part of all of this is that I am fearful that if I were to start advertising the need for folks in our church to read this book that one of two things will happen.
The first thing would be that some people will read this book and nothing will change externally. In other words, they will probably get something out of the words in the book but it will not move them enough to make changes. Perhaps that is because they as a church attendee are happy with the status quo and don't want to see anything change. The church attendee may be in a rut and comfortable with what is going on. The second type of person will look at the book as an attack against tradition and the denominational culture they have been raised in. They will see my promotion of this book as pointing a finger and rocking the boat.

What good is knowledge if it is not applied to our lives and changes made? Would someone please get me a LARGE bandage?