“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Acts 2:42 (ESV)
What makes a true community?
People use the word community to describe all sorts of social groups. But what constitutes a “true” (real, authentic, fully realized) community? If we are born into the same race or family, does our membership in the same tribe equal true community? What if we wear the same colors, tattoo our bodies, endure the same initiation, does our gang become a true community? What makes a true community?
Psychologist and author, Scott Peck, says that most people have only experienced true community in accidental ways and that usually during crisis. He says that most groups that people think of as communities are really just “pseudo-communities.” He believes that true community requires going through a four stage process of deepening relationships and connection.
These four stages are:
- Pseudo-community: Where participants are “nice with each other”, playing-safe, and presenting what they feel is the most favourable sides of their personalities.
- Chaos: When people move beyond the inauthenticity of pseudo-community and feel safe enough to present their “shadow” selves.
- Emptiness: This stage moves beyond the attempts to fix, heal and convert of the chaos stage, when all people become capable of acknowledging their own woundedness and brokenness, common to us all as human beings. Out of this emptiness comes…
- True community: the process of deep respect and true listening for the needs of the other people in this community. This stage Peck believes can only be described as “glory” and reflects a deep yearning in every human soul for compassionate understanding from one’s fellows.
Peck’s description of true community as the “deep yearning in every human soul” is what drives us to tattoo ourselves and identify with tribes. We all have a deep desire for true community.
I think God made us that way. He made us relational. He made us to be in relationship with Him and with others. That’s why Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love God and to love others as ourselves. In other words, God designed us to be in true community with HIm and with HIs people.
The Bible word for this true community is “fellowship.” The Greek word is κοινωνία, koinonia, which can also be translated as “communion, participation, partnership” or literally as “what is shared in common.”
Any community that approaches the level of being “true” always seems to have certain traits in common. The first century church described in the book of Acts was certainly a “true community.” They had four traits in common. These four traits or “devotions” were the apostle’s teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayer.
These four traits of true community might be restated as:
- A common belief
- A common identity
- A common practice
- A common dependence.
This past Wednesday I gathered with my weekly WCC Community Group. We stood in a circle holding hands and prayed over our meal. We ate together, laughing and talking about our week while nibbling away at our food. We gathered in the living room to discuss that Sunday’s sermon which was about prayer. We read the Scripture and discussed its implications and applications for each of us. After Bible study, the men headed to the dining room to pray while the women stayed in the living room to do the same.
We decided to follow the three points or “movements” of the sermon in our prayers, so each man gave three prayer requests. One was an “inward” confession of a sin or struggle. The second was an “upward” prayer, offering thanks to God for something specific in our lives. And the third was an “outward,” kingdom-come prayer for some gospel need was sensed in our world. A real sense of God’s presence was felt as we prayed.
After the men finished praying, we could still hear the women praying passionate prayers in the other room. When they finished there was a flourish of hugs and handshakes, a gathering of our things and a scurrying out the door as we said “goodbyes” and “love yous” until next week.
If true community, true fellowship, is having all things in common. Then, I think we’ve found it.
This article is an edited version of an earlier one I wrote in September 2008.