Christian Community in the City

Christian "community," (sometimes called fellowship), is that social and active fellowship enjoyed by the believers, whereby we edify one another in our life in Christ.  This post investigates the nature and vitality of Christian community in the city.

Now, the greatest impediment to Christian Community, in city life, is the lack of time.  The ceaseless round of weekly activities uses up all the time.  There is no Christian quietness or time for spiritual fellowship.  Quietness is boring -- or frightening.  It is certainly not a virtue in our busy world.  If you are quiet, you may lose an opportunity to get ahead!

Most times, I'm sure, our weekly activities are all considered to be necessary or excellent benefits to ourselves and to our children which we cannot afford to pass by.  Particularly is this the case when it comes to giving our children that initial boost in life which we believe that they need for future success.  Business requirements, too, including "church" business, can dominate our schedules.  Whatever the cause, a vital casualty of this lifestyle is Christian community.  When, in the city, there are so many available activities, even so much "good" that can be engaged in, even so much Christian good, the virtues of a quiet life are lost and remain undeveloped in our souls.  Christian community, if it exists at all, can only be "scheduled" like everything else.  But, can those necessary heart-to-heart talks always be "scheduled"?  No.  They will just never happen.

The church has always thought this busy-ness to be dangerous and wrong.

So, how does time for Christian community, or even time for personal contemplation, come about?  Something has to be sacrificed!  And, if your life and your family's life is not filled with time-wasting activities, then something good will have to be sacrificed.  And, in order for something good to be sacrificed, Christian virtues of a quiet life must rise in our consciousness, beyond the good of the good things we must sacrifice!

Here are some random thoughts:

You train your children in all sorts of intellectual programs and physical sports for their future good.  Yet, how much of this is competitive training which teaches them to be motivated by the desire to be "first"?  Is this realistic -- or Christian?  Think of your own life experience.  How will this motivation to be "first" serve them throughout their lives?  How much of the intellectual activity or physical sport which they engage in are to train them in accordance with their actual gifts?  Is any part of their lives given over to "play"?  "Boredom" is a vital stimulant to creativity.  Can you arrange your educational program to train them ultimately in those things that they are best at, and in which, by living as quietly as their calling permits, they will contribute to society and church in a productive manner?

People in business, educators and church-workers, male or female, can ask the same questions about their own professional activities.  How much of this is necessary, and how much of what I do is to feed my personal ambitions?

The bottom line is this:  Is it spiritually clean to be busy all the time?  Have we made "idols" of good things?  Can life be quieter?  Can there be more time for God and our fellow believers?

The answer to this must be "Yes!".  But, then, we Christians must live differently than the world -- even differently than the rest of the "Christian" world that is as busy as the world!

There needs to be a taste of Paradise in our Christian social lives, just as there is in worship.