What is Community?

The Church is a Community Built on the Gospel

Read 1 Peter 2:4-10 – The church is a community of people joined together around this central truth: that Jesus, the son of God, was sent by God the Father to make atonement (payment) for sin, thus making it possible for all who place their trust in Him as Lord and Savior, to be forgiven, to be made righteous, to be brought from death to life. There are many reasons to join together: hobbies, mutual interests, occupations, neighborhoods; but what is unique about the church is it was created through the Gospel, sustained by the Gospel and remains to proclaim the Gospel.

The Church is a Unified Community

When God calls us to Himself through the Gospel He also welcomes us into His family. Our new identity in Christ is now a corporate identity. In his book Reversed Thunder, Eugene Peterson, writes, “One of the immediate changes that the gospel makes is grammatical: we instead of I; our instead of my; us instead of me.” Consider the picture Peter paints: God has made them spiritual stones and is joining them together into one spiritual house. The imagery is that of interdependence. Imagine going up to a house and removing bricks from it. With each brick removed the house becomes weaker and unstable. Peter wants the church to understand how important each stone is and how dependent each one is on the other.

The Church is a Community that Shares A Common Identity

What is an Identity? The American Heritage Dictionary describes the word identity as: the set of characteristics by which a thing is definitively recognizable or known. As individuals we often carry multiple identities according to the different roles we carry out. For example a person might be able to carry multiple identities such as husband, father, son, employee and athlete depending on the different roles they play in life. This is not just true for individuals but also for groups of people: corporations, sports teams and even churches. Every group has a set of characteristics by which they are known and recognized.