Where do we define what genuine community is?

More specifically where is it in the scriptures?

* the trinity
* what Jesus says will characterise his people e.g Matt 5-7 amd his commands to love
* Paul’s theology of one new humanity and its implications in Ephesians
Romans 12-16 (we often forget they are there)
the one another passages lile Colossians 3
household tables and instructions etc

*key metephors: the body and household

I have been trying to nail a definition - how about

“gospel community is persons
united in Christ and his word by faith
clothed in his righeousness and grace
and bound to one another in obedient love”

...?

Shane Rogerson - 18 February 2008 12:20 PM

I have been trying to nail a definition - how about

“gospel community is persons
united in Christ and his word by faith
clothed in his righeousness and grace
and bound to one another in obedient love”

...?

Sounds good

I think most people assume it is that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you know you are with people who care about you.

come back to Michaels question, just wanted to clarify where they are coming from.
its a dual fidelity that they are concerned with.
1. fidelity to the gospel word - believed and proclaimed
2. fidelity to gospel community - bonded and missional.

whilst missional engagement seems to be a common agreement for many who read here - a fundamental plank in the way they do mission is in community.
that is there seems to be a very conscious awareness of not going out evangelising as a spiritual rambo, but rather expressing both their relationship with God and their witness to God as persons in community.

It seems wonderfully Trinitarian to me in a way that most evangelistic tracts and courses fundamentally miss. We love God and talk about God together - because we have been Loved and Spoken to by the ’together‘ God - FAther Son and Holy Spirit.
so as those who have been redeemed as God’s image bearers, as ‘persons in community’, we engage in His mission as persons in community.

The question for some might be whether this relies too much on the dynamic of relationships to engage in mission rather than God’s revelation in his son and through his word?
can we say ‘don’t look at us -look at Jesus’ ?

Michael Jensen - 18 February 2008 11:36 AM

Craig summarises the 2 major concerns of the book well.

Are they concerns people share? I take it, since most of us are signed up to the idea of the mission more or less, that concern 1) is fairly uncontroversial.

But 2)?

Every church I’ve been a part of has been committed to fellowship and community of some sort. The difference is the understanding of community that Total Church is promoting. They seem to see it as something much more profound and far-reaching than what I’ve seen before.

I’m going more off what my friends, who were part of “The Crowded House” for 2 months, are telling me.

Yes, the chapter on ‘pastoral care’ underlines this I think.

On the one hand, you can be a pastoral care problem driven church, where the way to get the pastor’s attention is by having a problem, and he is seen as the special, paid problem solver. Or, you can have the attitude of ‘if it’s a pastoral care problem of any seriousness, we need to get them to see a (secular) professional’. Or, again, ‘if we emphasise pastoral care as a thing we do, we will end up with people with problem EVERYWHERE!’

Whereas, TC talks about really sharing one another’s burdens: making ‘church’ the kind of community where you would share your concerns, difficulties and trials with others, and not just the designated ‘minister/pastor’. It’s hard to do this, or harder, if the church is too big and people don’t have personal connections with others.

Talking to Ro and Nae (who were at Crowded House in Sheffield), one of the things that struck me most was locality. It’s not just about being small - you actually need to live near one another for the model to work.

What are some of the differences between ‘small groups’ that many of our churches have and the ‘crowded house’ groups?

thanks Di

Well, their “small groups” are actually the church - they are a house church ministry. Each church has between 15 and 30 members, and they meet weekly for a regular church service. But because they are close to each other, they see each other throughout the week as well. They do social activities together, and hang out at each others houses. They also bring significant decisions (like, “should I buy this house?") to the group to discuss as a community decision. And they do their witnessing together, as a community, not individually.

Those are a few of the differences R&N;spoke about. Shane can probably remember some others.

one of the key differences is that often small groups function in churches for either christian education or pastoral care because the large aggregations that they are part of at other times won’t be able to do this as well.
so we say that those who don’t connect sunday get to connect at a more substantial level on Wednesday night.
the whole dynamic of the total church principal places far more emphasis on the one anotherness of church played out in the whole of life -not just at a Sunday event or Wednesday evening.
to borrow from Boenhoffer - its life together, including learnng from the word.

some churches risk becoming preaching centres - one thing that TCH is not, despite the fact that one of their main leaders is a good preacher (better than most)
their focus is not on coming to hear the preacher (and gather around him ) because their focus is not bible teaching (pr teachers) but bible learning it would seem.
Part of bible learning is the way we teach and exhort one amother - so small church facilitates this dynamic more conducively. they are not less than bible studies, but more. It s a function of the preisthood of all believers ,without diminshing the role of the pastor teacher who facilitates this through preaching/teaching - life and doctrine stuff.

In the ‘normal’ church plant model, financial viability is one of the biggest motivators to grow. Its’ hard to sustain a f/t minister with less than 50 adult members.

What’s the TCH model here? Given that there should be members that are genuinely financially struggling if you are reaching a cross-section of people, are they reliant on a core of reasonably well off and generous lay members? Or are they genuinely ‘communitarian’?

[tangent] Personally I am a bit nervous about commune models because of some of the big cult disasters that came out of the 60s. This model can be a bit naive about human nature. I can think of more than one notorious example of one-time orthodox churches that went seriously off the rails with charismatic leaders (not in the theological sense) who got too full of themselves.. one factor was that the ‘pooling’ of members property/income ended up being abused by the leadership. There are major issues of accountability and transparency around this issue.

How do TCH navigate such issues?

R&N;told me that they believe 15-30 people (typical size) is usually enough to pay for a pastor, even if it’s only part time. It seems that some of the leaders start as “tentmakers”, with the aim being that they will move toward full or part time paid ministry in the future.

Hi
It sounds like the ‘Bible Fellowship’ idea - which is part of our mission here in Sydney. I am not sure if many people have tried it so far.
Di

.. is this like a network of house churches… where the ‘pastors’ are laity not in the formal Anglican stipend system but have an ordained ‘overseer’?

I’m a little suspicious given the comment about 15 people sustaining a minister (even given a P/T basis) that there is an assumption that all 15 people are in paid work. This isn’t going to be true if you have a broad spread of ages and socio-demographics. In my experience less than a third of church members may actually be in paid work (students, stay at home parents, single mums, people with unsupportive spouses, pensioners, people with health issues etc).

Am I being too pessimistic????

Jeremy,

I agree that you will probably need more than 15 people to support a minister, unless you are just targetting yuppies.

However, even pensioners and unemployed get an income from the government, and pensioners who tithe give more that the statistics show many people (including well paid workers) give in some churches.
It shouldn’t be so, but it appears that it is.

David