Why is Christian Community Important?

Why Is Christian Community Important?

Local Christian communities worship God together, share the good news of the gospel, serve their communities in love, and grow in healthy relationships with one another.

Why Christian Community is Important

We believe that God created us, and loves us. God’s design for us is to live in community, and God’s design for the Christian faith is to share it in the richness of a local Christian community, a local church. Local Christian communities are groups of people who worship God together, who share the good news of the gospel, who serve their communities in love, and who grow in healthy relationships with one another. The local church is a vital part of God’s plan for you, for us, for our world. There are a range of local churches in your community, and you can find one by diving into our directory.

What Does God Say About Community?

The Body of Christ

The Bible uses a range of metaphors to describe the kind of Christian community that God envisages the church to be.

Principal among these is the metaphor of the body, with many parts of the New Testament describing the church as the Body of Christ. There are references to the different parts of the body depending upon each other to become the whole (1 Corinthians 12), that when we work together we grow (Ephesians 4), to Jesus being the head of the body of Christ (Ephesians 1) and so on. The body metaphor when applied to Christian community is powerful, even today, and reminds us that we are called together to be one, to love and serve God, to be led by Jesus, to seek to be of one mind, to acknowledge that there are different gifts and skills needed within the body.

God's Family

Elsewhere the Christian community is described as being members of God’s household, or part of God’s family – another set of metaphors that depend on and demand healthy communal relationships.

Being called to church as community is for both the good times, and the challenging ones. We’re called to stir one another on to good deeds, to love and good works, but also to lift one another up when we fall or struggle. This challenge to loving relationships in both high times and low is the essence of a local church as community.

The biblical passage from Colossians 3:12-17 is often used in wedding ceremonies because of its powerful call to community and relationship. It’s a wonderful description of what God says about community and is worth taking a moment to read in full:

12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. 15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Col 3:12-17, New International Version)

The call to community, and the commitments it asks of us are clear in this passage. To love one another, to express that love with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. To practise forgiveness – acknowledging that God first forgives us. And to place at the centre of our community acts of worship and discipleship, acknowledging God first, above all. That’s a powerful image of a Christian community at its very best.

And as we are reminded in John 13, Jesus’ own instruction to us is to love one another just as He first loved us.

What’s the Purpose of a Local Christian Community?

The purpose of the Local Christian Community is to bear witness to God’s love for us – in both word and deed. That sounds simple, but it isn’t always easy. As a community we are called to:

Worship

Arguably the primary purpose of the Church is to gather together as a Christian community to learn who Jesus is, to worship God, to grow as his disciples, and to carry on with the traditions of prayer, biblical study, and exploring the Christian faith.

Pastoral Care

As we have already explored, the local church community is called to love and care for one another. We’re called to celebrate together, to mourn together, to look after one another. These things we know as pastoral care – and they’re at the heart of the local Christian community.

Witnessing

We are to continue sharing the story of the Christian faith, reminding people that God created and loves them, and inviting them to live in relationship with God. This is the sharing of the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Sharing the good news is both easier and more effective when we do so in the context of the local Christian community. When Jesus sent his disciples out into the world to proclaim the gospel, he sent them in pairs or small groups – not alone.

Serving

The Christian church exists to love, because God first loved us. Jesus himself invited us to care for the sick, the imprisoned, the vulnerable, to clothe the naked and feed the hungry. Many local churches serve in a variety of ways in their local community, but this purpose is also the reason why larger church organisations like the Salvation Army, BlueCare, Anglicare, Mission Australia or Christian schools and hospitals exist today. Together as a community we can work in love, service and the pursuit of justice far more effectively than as individuals.

Advocacy

Christian churches also advocate on behalf of the poor and marginalised, calling governments to account to ensure that our society is fair and just, and a reflection of God’s kingdom values. Using our shared, communal voice to call for justice and mercy is one of the purposes of the church as community.

Organisational Structures of a Christian Community

As well as offering metaphors such as the body of Christ, or household of God, the Bible also offers great insights into how the church as community should be organised, and how it should function. The biblical book of Acts offers the story of the early church and the way it was learning to organise itself and to function in healthy ways in response to the work of God in and around it. Many of the letters in the New Testament are written to small, fledgling churches and provide great insights into how the local community church should function.

There are insights into the ways God offers different kinds of leadership gifts for the building up of the body through leadership roles such as apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher (Ephesians 4:11-16).

There are passages reflecting on different characteristics of leaders – from Jesus’ own words about servant leadership (Matthew 20) to the kind of character that those selected to lead the local church community should exhibit (Titus 1, 1 Timothy 3).

There are stories too about the ways that the early church organised itself, including a wonderful story in Acts 6 about how the local church community committed to serving their neighbours in mission along with proclaiming the good news of the gospel – and so organised themselves in ways that allowed both to continue.

We’ve already explored how there are different denominations, and across those denominations there are different expressions of church. That includes how the global and local church is organised. Different denominations will interpret some of these biblical concepts slightly differently, and as a result will organise themselves in different ways. Those differences shouldn’t distract us from what binds the whole church community together as the body of Christ.

While there may be different names used, many local church communities take these biblical themes to work out how they should organise themselves. There will often be a leadership group, board or council, sometimes known as Elders, that are selected or chosen by the church to provide oversight and leadership.

There will be ministers, pastors or priests who are called to provide spiritual leadership to the local church community – including some of those gifts such as pastor or teacher that we named above from Ephesians 4.

And then following the Acts 6 story, there will be practical, or pragmatic systems as well – to ensure that as a community the local church is functioning well, and helping to meet local community needs and care for its neighbours.

Finally, many local churches will be part of a wider denomination or movement, understanding they have a part in the whole wider church. Some denominations will have regional or state governance bodies or councils (with a name like Presbytery, Synod or Diocese), they might have regional leaders or bishops providing oversight, and they might be part of national or international denominational systems with national and international leaders – like Archbishops, Presidents or in the case of the Catholic Church, the Pope. And some churches will be independent, with no wider denomination or system. All of these different systems reflect different interpretations of the core biblical principles of the Christian community being called to be the Body of Christ.

How Do I Help Build a Church Community?

There are many things that the local church community will do to help build and strengthen its sense of community: gathering together for worship, to pray or study the Bible, to celebrate, to work in love and service, to share fun social times and so on. These are core parts of the life of a local church community that help to build a sense of togetherness, a sense of being part of the one body.

But it’s also important to think about how we fit into the community picture ourselves. What do we individually bring, or contribute that helps build a sense of community?

First, we acknowledge that as the body of Christ we are community, and that Jesus is the head. We’re here to bring glory to God, not to ourselves. That helps to orient ourselves to our true purpose as Christian community.

Second, we take seriously the sense that there are many different parts of the body of Christ, and each one has its role to play. We acknowledge and welcome the gifts and contributions of others, even as we try to find the courage to humbly offer our own gifts and skills for the life of the local church community.

Third, we can take some of those biblical themes and principles we’ve outlined above and let them season and flavour our own behaviour. When we as individuals live out the invitation of Colossians 3 to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, we’re contributing to the health of our local church community. When we look for opportunities to encourage one another, to celebrate with one another, to mourn with one another – we’re not only following biblical principles, we’re helping to build healthy community.

The health of a Christian community is made up of the sum of all the small acts of community that are part of it. Those small acts belong to each of us – you and I – as members of the body of Christ.

Head over to our directory page and start your search for a local Christian community that you can be part of. You’d be so very welcome.

Scott Guyatt is a writer, speaker, trainer, and facilitator who has served the church in Australia for more than two decades. Scott’s experience includes helping the church explore mission, discipleship and leadership practices in local communities across the country.