Church community is vibrant like a forest in the fall, because it’s made up of so many different kinds of people.
One of my favorite old sitcoms is the show, “Cheers.” It took place almost entirely, inside a bar in Boston. It ran for eleven seasons and took us from the early eighties into the nineties. The owner, was a character named Sam Malone, who was a retired baseball player and coincidentally, a recovering alcoholic. The show’s theme song had the words, “Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came.”
The same characters came by the bar on a daily basis. When one character, by the name of Norm, came in every night, the entire bar called out, “Norm!” The show didn’t really tackle any serious issues of the day. It was just a fun show about a little community. I suspect that was a huge reason for its popularity.
I think there’s a desire inside all of us to walk into a place where everybody knows our name and they’re always glad we came. The world can be awfully chaotic and dark at times and I think we all long to be known and appreciated just the way we are.
The world is also full of quirky characters like the ones on “Cheers,” yet those people can come together and create really vibrant communities. Those communities can come from working together or being neighbors. They can be created through people who have the same interests. They can also be created in church.
We sometimes meet people in church that we would have never been friends with anywhere else. They may be older or younger or have babies or grown kids or grand babies. They may have different political views. But, church community is particularly special and unique because it’s made up of people who are drawn to worship and serve God in a similar way. The members sometimes have little else in common, but that’s what makes it strong.
Another big buzz word in churches these days are small groups. It seems like all churches try to set them up from the large mega churches to the small community churches. But, whatever the size of the church, the goal is the same, to plug members in with a community. Community supports each other when someone is sick or suffering. Community celebrates together when times are good.
Community can also hold each other accountable. We don’t like that word much, do we? We are all individuals and we want to do what we want when we want and we don’t want anyone to tell us we are wrong. If we want to skip church six Sundays in a row to go to the lake, then we don’t want to have to answer to anyone. No one is the boss of us.
While that is all true, a vibrant, loving community will contact members who go missing, not out of condemnation, but out of love and concern. True community misses its members when they are gone. They reach out to each other because they are missed. Like the show “Cheers,” neither the community nor the church is the same when someone is missing.
That missing person has a part to play within the community as well as in the fabric of God’s plan.
As I think of all of this, I want to encourage anyone who isn’t plugged in to a church community to find one or start one. We weren’t meant to walk alone. God has people who want to walk with us. Jesus said, “I also tell you this: If two of you agree here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you. For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.” Matthew 18:18-19
Community is important. We all need to be a part of it. We should all get to play the part of Norm in real life and to do that, we have to seek community.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂