Community

             Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. (I Corinthians 12:12-14)

 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:25)

One of the things I discovered while going to Hillcrest RV Resort that they had lots going on. There were two clubhouses, and activities all the time. When I came to Erie for the summer, it seemed as if the community disappeared. After a time, I figured out that the key to community is, in large part, having a place to get together. That’s generally lacking in Erie. The closest I could come was our churches, most of which aren’t ready, willing, or able to develop communities of people beyond their congregations.

When I sold my place in Florida in 2024, I struggled a little. What would I do to build community? What could I, sort of, force the churches to build community? It took me too long to realize that the point wasn’t about building a monolithic community. It’s not about developing one community. There are many communities available to us, and we are the lynchpin between them. You might describe us as being octopods, with “hands” in many pies/communities. This summer, I’ve read two books that were recommended about the way things are headed in the world around us: Live Not by Lies by Rod Dreher and Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth.  I’m not hitting the panic button completely, but the picture they paint isn’t unbelievable, and the two suggestions I find in them are to learn and tell the stories of “our people,” and to build real communities

Our primary communities are the Church and the Family, both of which are emphasized in Scripture. Today’s passage makes it loud and clear. We’re to be parts of the Body, closely connected and performing functions that we are best able to perform. We are not to separate ourselves from one another for casual reasons like our own egos. What it all boils down to is that we need to build a miniature world that doesn’t function the way the world does. We need to do it  as if our lives depend on it. Even if the scenarios described in those books don’t come to pass, the world will be a better place if we learn to build community.

This seems to be turning into something of a crusade for me, a natural outgrowth of “I’m not prepared for emergencies” and “do what you can, with what you have, where you are, now.” “Community strengthens.” I don’t think I’m any good at community, but I’m working at it.