Discipleship
Everywhere you go these days in the church world everyone seems to be talking about the need for community. But when I ask them what that looks like there doesn't seem to be any one specific or clear answer. As disciples of Jesus Christ, one of the unique opportunities we have is to engage in a "community on mission."
There is nothing quite as unifying or nearly as fulfilling as being on the same mission as others. There is a synergy, a symbiotic relationship that begins to form and becomes a life source when you come together as people on a common mission.
Just prior to Jesus's ascension to Heaven, He gave His followers a "common mission" in the form of what we know as the Great Commission. Every follower of Christ is called to the same common mission, and in that mission we have the capacity and opportunity to have true community.
The power of the early church was not just in the supernatural signs, wonders, and miracles they did through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, but also in the fact that they were of one mind and one heart. In Acts 2:42-47 we see the community found among Christ's first followers: sharing meals, meeting from house to house, and devoting themselves to the Apostle's teaching.
These first followers thrived and excelled in the community of "common mission." They didn't sit around listening to podcasts; they gave themselves to the doctrine. They embraced and applied the way of life and the principles taught by the Lord's disciples, and the results were the very thing that everyone these days seems to be raising the rally cry for: community.
The end result was their community grew and it changed the face of the known world in their day because of the authenticity of their common union in the mission Jesus had given to them. Some scholars estimate that the church at Ephesus was nearly 65,000 believers. The first mega churches were a result of the early church truly living out community on a common mission.
I think it's high time that the church gets back to being the church that changed the world, as opposed to the church that gathers on Sunday. We just need to find a group of people who are on that same mission as we are, and begin to assemble ourselves together with a oneness of purpose and see what happens as we truly engage community.