Conflicting Views

Conflicting Views

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality, Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of man. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Rom 12:10-18
“Living in community as God’s people is the goal and fulfillment of human life. It is the precondition for human life itself. There is no I apart from we.” These are the words of Thomas Hawkins, a district superintendent of the United Methodist Church in Illinois. In his book Cultivating Christian Community, Pastor Hawkins emphasizes the need for Christians to develop communities based upon mutual acknowledgement and recognition (notice that he did not say “complete agreement”). The problem is that Christian community requires us to put forth effort, to use restraint, to address our individual fears, and most of all, to express our Christian love. It doesn’t just happen. How do we make it happen?
Pastor Hawkins writes that we first need to be centered in Christ. We need to put away our own agendas and take up Christ’s agenda. This may require us to try new things that are uncomfortable. Second, we must build spiritual communities and not pseudo communities. A spiritual community is formed from a diverse group of people with different gifts and experiences. It represents a true cross section of our church family. A spiritual community actively seeks to involve persons with varying opinions. Spiritual communities are needed in the church. They are the primary way for us to evangelize, nurture our fellow members, and solve our problems.
We can contrast the benefits of spiritual communities with the problems of pseudo communities. I think members of every church have probably experienced these problems from time to time. Pseudo communities are sneaky-they can develop or they can subvert an existing group without the members even realizing it. How can you tell if your group has accidentally entered the pseudo community mode?
Pseudo communities are composed of people with the same or similar outlook. They don’t represent a spectrum of opinions within the church.
The focus of pseudo communities tends to skip from one problem to another, rather than looking for the most important issues. There may be more of a tendency to fix blame rather than to research creative solutions.
Small, easily solved problems start to look like a crisis.
When we begin to point fingers and label each other, we have at least temporarily forsaken spiritual community for pseudo community. So how do we practice spiritual community? Pastor Hawkins gives some key points:
Listening
Dialogue
Discerning God’s will together
Covenant Making
Prayer and reflection together
In the next column (or two), I want to continue sharing Pastor Hawkins’ insights. His book is inspirational and practical. It has been a valuable part of my Certified Lay Ministry studies and I would recommend it to all. For now, let’s pray for each other, and especially for those whose views differ from our own. Let’s pray for our pastor and the lay leaders of the church and pray that we can continue to work together as a spiritual community.