Redefining Community

The Power of "We"

We haven’t exactly been given an excess of information or dialogue from the life of Jesus, so what we do have must be really important. Among the relatively few recorded words of Jesus is the invitation, “Come follow me.” Time and again, Jesus invited people of all kinds—misfits, do-gooders, tax collectors, nobodies, and manual laborers—to join his history-changing, world-healing, grace-soaked community of friends.

Christ-defined community is a commitment to compassion. Jesus told his friends that community would be an active sacrifice for the sake of the larger healing of the world. In fact, He said following him would be like carrying a big, heavy cross on your back. In Jesus’ world, community is neither incidental nor accidental. Community is the intentional surrender of our time, money, comfort, and emotional energy in interest of contributing to the healing of our neighbors and, ultimately, the healing of the world. Community requires us to surrender the comforts of “me” to access the power of “we.”

In some seasons your community will come to your rescue; other times, you will have the holy privilege and weighty responsibility of being an agent of healing in your community. When you participate in suffering alongside someone, the waves of healing and hope spread far beyond your small circle. To be a part of one small story of healing is to take part in God’s universal, everlasting story of healing. When we consider those resounding implications of compassionate community, “we” begins to look like a much better investment than “me.”