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Who are the people who support you? 

Who are those friends or family members who cheer you on in your faith, and come alongside you when you’re struggling? 

We live in a culture that celebrates individualism and personal achievement, but have you ever considered that we follow a God who celebrates community? When Jesus invited his disciples to “come, follow me”, the Greek translation says he used the word “deute”, which is the plural form of “come and follow”. It was the Biblical equivalent of Jesus saying “y’all” instead of just “you”—because he was calling his followers into community. 

Culturally, Jesus lived in a society that was built around the idea of community. Families in the first century lived in houses where multiple generations lived under the same roof. They had family gardens—“ganim” in Hebrew—like these ones I photographed in Bethlehem, which were terraced plots stacked side-by-side and on top of each other on a hillside. Entire neighborhoods would work together to maintain the retaining walls and care for the gardens because if one garden failed, they all failed. For a garden to bear fruit, the whole community had to work together. Life was built around relying on your community—and people survived because of the community around them.

To be a follower of Jesus is to be part of a community. Pastor Craig Groeschel sums up this idea when he says, “You can never be who God called you to be outside the strength of a biblical community.” God calls us into community—into a family of believers who are supposed to comfort and challenge us to continually grow in our faith.

So … who are the people in your community of faith? Who helps fix your retaining walls, ensures your faith is growing, and makes sure you are bearing fruit? How can you celebrate them today?

For reflection:

And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. — Acts 2:44