The Missing Link in Church Community

Every Wednesday, my church staff and I meet and pray. And each week we have pages and pages of prayer requests from people in the church.

We get requests like: “Pray for my sister who, a week ago, left her family, her husband, and her church” or “Pray for my husband, for deliverance from alcoholism and adultery” or “Pray for Kevin, he’s 33 years old and he’s been diagnosed with cancer.”

In the Church – Christ’s body – what’s so obvious is that many people are desperately hurting and in need of love. Yet there are also many people who are willing and wanting to give love.

So why is it that so few of these hurting ones actually get loved?

A lot of people in the Church don’t really get loved or don’t get loved at the level that they need because there’s a missing link.

What’s the missing link?

The link between huge need and willing hearts is an understanding that we are “members of one another.” (Romans 12:5) Or in other words, we belong to each other.

Just as we have a common origin with our mother and father, so we also have a common supernatural origin to those who are born again and know Christ.

Likewise, despite all the struggles some of us have been through in our families, we know in our hearts of hearts that we still have an obligation to honor our biological parents because they brought us into the world. So too in the body of Christ, we have a responsibility to one another.

If we can realize that we’re members of the Body of Christ – a supernatural community – it will transform our lives.

We need to move away from a theoretical concept of loving each other to practical, concrete, empowered, and supernatural interaction. So that on a daily basis, in tangible ways, we can move into one another’s lives and give and receive love in such a way that we are in awe of who God is.

Then, we need to realize that as members of the supernatural community of God, we’ve been given a supernatural agenda.

Jesus talked about the kingdom of God. What is it? The kingdom of God is when people are rightly related to God, rightly related to one another, and reaching out to people who are outside of kingdom blessing.

This is an agenda or mission that is bigger than each of us. And when we buy into this agenda from our heart, it produces incredible bonds.

Finally, as members of a supernatural community, we need to understand that we have supernatural power

As believers, we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us. Romans 8:11 says: The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you.

This means the power that raised Jesus from the dead also empowers us. Helping us to overcome sin’s power in our life, to love people we don’t even like, and the power to reach out when we’re tired and don’t feel like it. We also have the power to trust Him through difficult times and the power to endure when we feel like giving up.

There is power in being part of a group with the same agenda and the same power.

So if you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, then you are a member of a supernatural community, with a supernatural origin, with a supernatural agenda, and you possess supernatural power.

If you get that from your head to your heart, you’ll never think about Christians the same way ever again! And you’ll never do life in community the same way again.

If you would like to explore this topic more in depth, take a look at Chip’s series: Love One Another, True Spirituality, or Spiritual Simplicity.