Love Plus Commitment Equals Community

A year ago, Christmas Eve, I had a seizure that sent me to the emergency room in the back of an ambulance.

By the time I woke up in the hospital 45 minutes later, my wife Tammy and I felt like Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed in It’s a Wonderful Life. Assembled all around us, on our worst day, were our church friends, our community. They were there to lift us up.

My neighbor down the street, Ron, took my oldest son to eat, just to get him away from the hospital. My friend, Dave, the fireman, got to the hospital first and wouldn’t leave until we did. Our real estate agent couple friends, Mark and Tammy provided both comic relief and loving care. Some of our best friends, Brett and Angela called on the road from North Carolina and kept calling until they got home. When they finally arrived, they showed up at our home with an ice cream cake in tow. They didn’t know quite what to do, so they showed up and listened. We were simply overwhelmed by the support and love we encountered.

It was Christmas Eve - late. These people had family gatherings to attend. They had to get ready for Santa. They had down time and rest coming. So, why did they come? They were committed to us. They are also committed to following HARD after Jesus Christ.

The word “community” is thrown around quite a bit these days in church life, probably too much. We talk about creating it and building it, like it is some kind of mystical place we reach at the end of a journey.

Let me de-mystify it for you. Community is all about commitment and how deeply you love people. It’s about how messy you are willing to get. It’s about how much inconvenience you are willing to endure for the people you care about.

When I think about commitment to community, it’s not hard to think about Jesus. His entire ministry was made up of making time for building community. His disciples might have called them interruptions. He regarded them as opportunities. He stopped on the street to talk with and care for the downtrodden. He healed the sick. He fed the hungry. He gave us great stories like the Prodigal Son, which commanded us to welcome the wayward back with love, and the Good Samaritan, which gave us the gold standard for how we should respond to the hurting when we are too busy or have “better things to do with our money.”

But in his small group, his smaller community, his disciples, He gave us even greater rules for community:

He prayed relentlessly for them. He asked them the hard questions. He didn’t let them settle for second best. He loved them daily with an undying love. His patience was sorely tested with them, but He never gave up on them. He forgave them and lived out the 70 times 7 application of that forgiveness.

It is impossible to measure up to His standard, but that is His standard nonetheless. His command is for us to reach that standard as we are lifted to it by His Spirit.

One of the friends who showed his commitment to me in my medical emergency is a great example of the Jesus Community standard. About eight years ago, he came to our Bible study group’s Christmas party without a relationship with Jesus. He told some coarse sexual jokes and generally acted like a lost person would. Several people came to me afterwards and asked me if there was some way we could disengage this guy from our group.

We never did. We saw him saved. We saw him baptized. We see him going on mission trips. We see him now leading his family well. We see him teaching children. We see him caring for the elderly. Now, he is leading the small group I started many years back. Our group committed to him. The saving power of Jesus Christ did the rest.

Community requires commitment. On nearly every occasion, that commitment comes back as a blessing to you. It did for us last Christmas Eve.

You want a recipe for community? It’s a simple formula…

Love plus Commitment equals Community.