Beyond a irage

BY DR. PETER NAFZGER

The Christian life is always lived in community. When God calls people to faith in Jesus, He also gathers them together for life with other believers. Martin Luther understood this. In his explanation to the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed, he would not finish his sentence about the Spirit calling individuals without insisting that the Spirit also gathers the whole Christian church on earth. As I used to tell my congregation in Minnesota, it is impossible to be a Christian alone! By faith we are members of one another (Rom. 12:5); we are baptized into one body (1 Cor. 12:13); we share one Spirit, one hope and one Lord (Eph. 4:4-5). We get a glimpse of this communal life every Sunday morning. Yet even at church, the

Mexperience of authentic community can be hard to find. One of the paradoxes of the Christian life is that we are at the same time saints and sinners. That is, we are the people God has made us to be … and at the same time we are not. With respect to Christian community, we are at the same time perfectly unified and yet also hopelessly separated and separating. Most of us have experienced this paradox firsthand. We have attended congregations that share spaces, songs and Sunday morning schedules. But we don’t feel like we belong.

Community strategists Carrie Melissa Jones and Charles Vogl suggest that authentic community is more elusive