Christian Community – We Are Better Together!

Christian Community: We Are Better Together

Activity: “Find Your Twin” game.

MUSIC:

Intro: Why is it important to be a part of a group, a team, or a community…or is it? What can we gain or lose by being a part of a group? Do you think it is easier or harder to be a part of a group (IRL) than it used to be? What does Christianity offer to as community – or a place to belong?

GENESIS 2:18    Created for Relationships: “It is not good for man to be alone.”

 Bible verse challenge: open you Bible and pick a random verse…this will almost always be about our relationship with God or with others!

• The Trinity is a model for relationship: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
• The (in)famous Rhesus monkey experiment
• What does it feel like to be accepted in a group? To be excluded?

HEBREWS 10:24-25     What is Christian Community?

• What are we being to to do in these verses (consider, spur, love, good deeds)
• What does it mean to “spur one another on”?
• What do some people “give up meeting together”?
• What happens when we don’t meet together (family time, time with friends, team practices, church or youth group)?

JOHN 13:34-35     What Does Christian Community Look Like?

• How can you tell is someone is a part of a community (sports fans, political parties, foreign nations, other religions)?
• How is the church, the “community of Christ” different than most other groups (i.e. universally available, based on service seeking ultimate truth)?
• How does Jesus say that anyone can tell that we are members of his community?

ROMANS 12:10     Rules for Membership

• “Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.” What would any group, team, organization, or community look like if this was the core value?
• “Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.” (Mark 9:35). How can we “get to the top” spiritually by following Jesus’ rules rather than the rules of the world? How can following Jesus’ rules make life harder sometimes?
• Read Acts 2:42-47 – The Fellowship of the Believers. This is the model of the earliest church community. Is this the way your church is run today? How can we help build up the church by being a part of that community?

 SUMMARY – There are many challenges to being a part of a real, face-to-face community in the modern world. Social media, a false sense of “freedom” or “independence” …which can easily lead to isolation and the need to “get our way” above all things. What benefits have you experienced by being a part of a Christian community (church, Sunday school, summer camp, youth group, FCA, etc.)? Christ calls all of us into relationship: with Jesus as Lord and Savior, and with others as beloved brothers and sisters, and as adopted children of God united by the Holy Spirit.

Christian community isn’t just something we attend…it is something we build together. When we show up, love one another, and live out our faith side by side, then we show the world what God’s community of love really looks like!

PRAYER