Previous Post -In Defense of a Thousand Words
Here are the previous posts thus far:
Foundations in Community – Part 1
Foundations in Community – Part 2
Foundations in Community – Part 3
Foundations in Community – Part 4
Foundations in Community – Part 5
Foundations in Community – Part 6
The foundational convictions proposed thus far are as follows:
1. “Every member of this community is an important part of the whole that reflects Christ. Our ability to live & thrive as Christ followers is dependent on one another. Thus, we must VOLUNTARILY make the common good of the community our priority. Only in this way can our individual well-being truly be protected.”
2. “For our community there can be only one ultimate authority- our loving God, whose will we discern together as a community by His Holy Spirit”
3. “The only requirement to be welcomed as a member of our church community is the desire and commitment to follow Jesus.”
4. “The primary place to the discern God’s will is in the context of the Christ-committed community.”
5. “Our response to the love and grace of God as a community is to live missionally- that is, to live & proclaim the mission of Jesus to others where they are at.”
6. “Our commitment to Christ, community and mission requires that we be aware of and cautious with any commitment, recognition or resource that might divert us from our primary vocation”
7. “We trust in God to be the only necessary source of provision of ‘daily bread’, believing that what we have is all we need for living into our kingdom calling as a community”
8. “Every member is called to lead (and be led) with respect to their unique gifting, calling, maturity experience and character, where (all things being equal) no role is privileged above another.”
9. “We are committed as a community to a high degree of organizational simplicity, especially with respect to growth, activity and leadership.”
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In a Peanuts cartoon Lucy demanded that Linus change TV channels, threatening him with her fist if he didn’t.
“What makes you think you can walk right in here and take over?” asks Linus.
“These five fingers,” says Lucy. “Individually they’re nothing but when I curl them together like this into a single unit, they form a weapon that is terrible to behold.”
“Which channel do you want?” asks Linus. Turning away, he looks at his fingers and says:
“Why can’t you guys get organized like that?”
While not the kind of unity we want to achieve (or the means to achieve it), this humorously illustrates the truth that there is strength in unity. Perhaps a better example comes from David Augsburger’s book “Dissident Discipleship: A Spirituality of Self-Surrender, Love of God and Love of Neighbour”:
“Long ago in a distant land, a prince dreamed of creating more than a geographical or political kingdom. He dreamed of establishing a community in which all persons were committed to each other in loyalty and equality, where every person sought the welfare of the neighbour even at a cost to the self. So the prince called a great meeting of all the heads of clans, all the wise and trusted people of the land, and dared to tell his dream. Each chieftain and his clan were invited to join in on the foundation of a new society.
As part of the community’s inauguration, each was requested to search his cellar for the best wine produced from his ancestral vines. These treasured bottles would be uncorked, poured into a great communal vat, and blended, as the true community it represented, into a common vintage.
“How can I mix my exquisite wine with that of my neighbours?” asked one of the winegrowers invited to the covenanting. “I would sacrifice the unique variety of grape, the special climate of the year, the sweetness of a late harvest, the indefinable magic of bouquet, and I would violate my art as a winemaker. Impossible! Give up my distinct variety? Lose my separate self? I will not be adulterated in such a common cup.”
So he corked a bottle of tap water, affixed his most beautiful label to the bottle, and at the time of ritual poured the water ceremoniously into the vat. When the covenanting was solemnized, all filled their glasses for the communal draft, the toast that would seal commitment to community. As the cups touched their lips, all knew the truth. It was not wine. It was water. No one had been willing to pay the cost of community.”
Here I would like to propose the 10th foundational conviction:
“We recognize that central to being community is unity, therefore we’re committed to peace and reconciliation, refusing to let personal and/or non-essential differences divide or scandalize.”
In other words, our commitment to Christ & His kingdom places unity (and thus peace & reconciliation) at the center of our lives & ministry. Presupposed in this statement is that there is brokenness- personal, relational, spiritual. It requires that we all begin with the humbled acknowledgment of our own sin, entering equally submitted to Christ’s work of peace and reconciliation among us and beyond to a watching world.
It is critical, of course, that we recognize that peace is far more than the absence of conflict or violence (just as goodness is so much more than the absence of evil). Rather, we Jesus spoke of peace, he was referring to an all-encompassing state of health, harmony and justice that even extended to his enemies. Images of the lion and lamb lying together powerfully capture the seemingly ridiculous, unnatural peace he is calling us to. When Jesus spoke of peace, His listeners would have known he was referring to shalom.
Shalom is a Hebrew word that in this context means far more than the absence of violence or even an established truce between enemies. Rather, central to its meaning is the concept of wholeness, one that includes the individual but extends also to broader society and even the world. John Driver defines it in this way:
“It meant well-being, or health, or salvation in its fullest sense, material as well as spiritual. It described the situation of well-being which resulted from authentically whole (healed) relationships among people, as well as between per- sons and God. According to the Old Testament prophets, shalom reigned in Israel when there was social justice, when the cause of the poor and the weak was vindicated, when there was equal opportunity for all, in short, when the people enjoyed salvation according to the intention of God expressed in his covenant.”
Shalom, then, works against the DIS-integrating power of sin. It seeks to restore what is broken to its original intention. This is the work of the Church- the vocation of the community of Christ living the kingdom into our broken and longing world (one neighbourhood at a time). Therefore, we know that our commitment to peace is not about the avoidance (or denial) of conflict, division or controversy, but rather our commitment and posture in the face of these dynamics.
A significant aspect of this commitment is to recognize that when we live our lives, identifying as Christians, our words and actions reflect back upon Christ, as well as our own faith communities. So, while it is not wrong to personal opinions and make our own choices, we must hold that freedom in tension with our commitment to Christ & His Church. As our first foundational commitment affirms, “we must VOLUNTARILY make the common good of the community our priority”. It is voluntary because we have no desire (or right) to dictate the minutiae of peoples lives, but instead want to foster of community of mutual submission and grace.
Whether it is our political positions or the way socialize with friends, every choice we make impacts the unity of the community of Christ. This is especially true for those who take positions of more visible leadership in the community of faith, as our choices more explicitly reflect on our community. This is complex dynamic that requires discernment and grace, but also a significant commitment to consistency, humility and intentionality.
This naturally leads to our 11th proposed foundational conviction:
“Our aim is that our faithfulness to Jesus will point to Him, not to ourselves, that people would be drawn to Christ in and through us, not primarily to any individual or even our own community.”
While this sounds noble, how it is actually accomplished is far from simple. Jesus said, “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.” (Matt. 6:1) Two things distinguish Jesus’ admonition:
First, He isn’t forbidding us from doing works of righteousness before others, at that would indeed be a contradiction of his earlier mandate (Matt. 5:14-16). Rather he is warning us against doing such works for the purpose of being seen by others, forcing us to examine the intentions of our heart.
The second unique aspect of Jesus’ warning is that, while we are not to perform these works of justice for the benefit of on-lookers, we are not called hide our righteousness from those on-lookers. Rather, we are called to hide it from ourselves! How can we hide from ourselves our own actions? Of course, Jesus is not suggesting that we some how induce a form of regular and persistent amnesia, but instead is showing us that it is not even enough to keep our works of righteousness secret from others, for the true source of the temptation is in our own hearts. How do we overcome such temptations and hide our just deeds from ourselves? As our previous proposed value suggests, the presupposition of our own brokenness should lead us to humble repentance. Only the pure in heart can hope to find such hiddenness. It is only when, formed into the community of the peace & reconciliation, through becoming the community of the crucified, that we are able to love God and our neighbor, free of selfish intentions.
Further, it is in the context of community (the kind of community we have been exploring in our engagement with the Sermon on the Mount and throughout this series) that our personal ambitions can be put to the cross. Even our shared hopes and missional engagement will be free of the sense of ownership that so often plagues our churches, celebrating the life of Christ in others even when we are neither credited for nor beneficiaries of such change. It is difficult, but genuinely beautiful if we dare to follow Christ on that path.
And so, with only one more to propose in the coming weeks, the foundational convictions proposed thus far are as follows:
1. “Every member of this community is an important part of the whole that reflects Christ. Our ability to live & thrive as Christ followers is dependent on one another. Thus, we must VOLUNTARILY make the common good of the community our priority. Only in this way can our individual well-being truly be protected.”
2. “For our community there can be only one ultimate authority- our loving God, whose will we discern together as a community by His Holy Spirit”
3. “The only requirement to be welcomed as a member of our church community is the desire and commitment to follow Jesus.”
4. “The primary place to the discern God’s will is in the context of the Christ-committed community.”
5. “Our response to the love and grace of God as a community is to live missionally- that is, to live & proclaim the mission of Jesus to others where they are at.”
6. “Our commitment to Christ, community and mission requires that we be aware of and cautious with any commitment, recognition or resource that might divert us from our primary vocation”
7. “We trust in God to be the only necessary source of provision of ‘daily bread’, believing that what we have is all we need for living into our kingdom calling as a community”
8. “Every member is called to lead (and be led) with respect to their unique gifting, calling, maturity experience and character, where (all things being equal) no role is privileged above another.”
9. “We are committed as a community to a high degree of organizational simplicity, especially with respect to growth, activity and leadership.”
10. “We recognize that central to being community is unity, therefore we’re committed to peace and reconciliation, refusing to let personal and/or non-essential differences divide or scandalize.”
11. “Our aim is that our faithfulness to Jesus will point to Him, not to ourselves, that people would be drawn to Christ in and through us, not primarily to any individual or even our own community.”
