God’s Design for Community

When Jesus walked the earth in His human form, He gathered people from different backgrounds, genders, dispositions, and those who believed differently about how to work out God’s Law to be His disciples. And these people stayed together in spite of their differences because of their one common denominator: they were all compelled to believe that this man, Jesus, was the One they’d been told about all their lives – the promised Son of God and Savior of the world. If Jesus is the perfect human and He showed us how to be who and what we really are (John 14:6), then here we find God’s design for a community built upon His Kingdom, a Community for Life.

Scripture shows us that a community of believers in Christ:

  • walk in the light, as He is in the light, [and] we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin (1 John 1:7).
  • carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).
  • though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others” (Romans 12:5).
  • love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:12-13).

We watched this play out recently for a very specific client. She’s been with us for a long time, and her life this year has gone up in flames. Working hard to provide for her kids, she finds herself chronically exhausted, barely able to make ends meet. She called us one day at the end of herself just needing to talk. Unbeknownst to her, we had just had a couple of local churches give generous financial gifts, and another church put together food bags for our moms who are struggling to provide.

Not only were we able to give this mom emotional support, but we were also able to tell her, look, all of this came from the people of God in this community because they believe in you, and God wants to show up for you through them.

She walked away awestruck and in tears. We were so blessed to be able to not only serve her but tell her about YOU and what happens when the whole Body of Christ joins together as the hands and feet of Jesus.

This is a Community for Life.

-by Dayna Holmes, Executive Director, & Katelynn Martin