Day Nineteen: Cultivating Community

"You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor." James 3:18 (Msg)

"They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers." Acts 2:42 (Msg)

Stuff That Stuck Out:

• Community requires commitment.
• Only the Holy Spirit can create real fellowship between believers, but he cultivates it with the choices and commitments we make.

1. Cultivating community takes honesty.

• Sometimes this means caring enough to lovingly confront one who is sinning or is being tempted to sin.
• Real fellowship, whether in a marriage, a friendship, or your church, depends on frankness.
• When conflict is handled correctly, we grow closer to each other by facing and resolving our differences.

2. Cultivating community takes humility.

• Self-importance, smugness, and stubborn pride destroy fellowship faster than anything else.
• The proper dress for fellowship is a humble attitude.
• Pride blocks God's grace in our lives, which we must have in order to grow, change, heal, and help others.
  
• Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.

3. Cultivating community takes courtesy.

• In every church and in every small group, there is always at least one "difficult" person, usually more than one. These people may have special emotional needs, deep insecurities, irritating mannerisms, or poor social skills. You might call them EGR people -- "Extra Grace Required."
• Community has nothing to do with compatibility. The basis for our fellowship is our relationship to God: We're family.
• Real community happens when people know it is safe enough to share their doubts and fears without being judged.

4. Cultivating community takes confidentiality.

• Only in the safe environment of warm acceptance and trusted confidentiality will people open up and share their deepest hurts, needs, and mistakes.
• God hates gossip, especially when it is thinly disguised as a "prayer request" for someone else.
• The fellowship of the church is more important than any individual.

5. Cultivating community takes frequency.

• We are to develop the habit of meeting together. A habit is something you do with frequency, not occasionally.
• Community is built not on convenience but on the conviction that I need it for spiritual health. If you want to cultivate real fellowship, it will mean meeting together even when you don't feel like it, because you believe it is important.

THE NINE CHARACTERISTICS OF BIBLICAL FELLOWSHIP-

We will:

• Share our true feelings. (Authenticity)
• Encourage each other. (Mutuality)
• Support each other. (Sympathy)
• Forgive each other. (Mercy)
• Speak the truth in love. (Honesty)
• Admit our weaknesses. (Humility)
• Respect our differences. (Courtesy)
• Not gossip. (Confidentiality)
• Make group a priority. (Frequency)

Point To Ponder: Community requires commitment.

Verse To Remember: "We understand what love is when we realize that Christ gave his life for us. That means we must give our lives for other believers." 1 John 3:16 (GWT)

Question To Consider: How can I help cultivate today the characteristics of real community in my small group and my church?