Musings on life in community (adapted from a recent email)

Community, a fitting thought, yes, as I am residing in possibly the most communal part of our country, “The Republic of Boulder,” but I digress.  Community is something that I think is becoming more and more a part of this whole “Emerging Church” era.  And I think that is good.  But I fear that it is a much deeper issue to resolve than a few people talking about the importance of community.  Let me explain; in my oh so humble opinion much of the modern church (20th century) has been structured heavily around Sunday morning and Wednesday night services.  These are good things, don’t get me wrong, but I think that the church that Paul writes about in Acts didn’t view their local body of believers as a group of people that they met with a couple of times a week for worship, accountability, and prayer.  You see, I am beginning to think that the community that is talked about in many of the Epistles has so much more for us than just the structured “containers” of corporate worship and Wednesday nights.  Having been raised in the church, I feel that the perspective for much of my life has been to segment the communities of my life.  My church friends from my friends at school, or my athletic team.  There was never a whole lot of opportunity for crossover.  I think that this perspective only leads one further down the path of “faking faith.”  I’m trying to wrap my  mind around what life would look like if I were genuinely the same person on Sunday mornings as I was on Monday mornings.  Now, that’s not to say that I live some warped double life, but I would say there are some differences. Mainly the things I talk about, the language I use, and the image I portray of myself.  Moreover, what does community look like when God is engaged in times other than just the “containers” established by the church?  Is it weird if that happens and I am with people with whom I don’t go to church?  Wouldn’t that be what authentic living is all about?  More than anything I want to be authentic.  I don’t want there to be this schism in my mind between people in the church and people out of the church...believers and non-believers.  It is so easy to have an us and them mentality, but why?  We are all fallen, none of us is better than another.  Often I feel like people who haven’t been raised in the church, or aren’t people of a faith in Christ are more genuine and authentic than many people in the church.  Have you ever wondered about that?

What if I invited a friend of mine from work to a time of “accountability” with a few guys from church.  Would that be weird for my friend?  Would it be weird for my friends from church? Would it be weird for me?  Why?  If this life isn’t about me, why does it matter how I feel?  If I truly want to be authentic how can I so segment my life so as to never have to really reconcile one aspect with the other?  I want the culture of my life to be such that I relate and and am 100% authentic in a church community as I am in the rest of community (taking account for Paul's “becoming all things to all people, for the sake of the gospel”).