{"id":175,"date":"2009-05-13T09:01:05","date_gmt":"2009-05-13T16:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/?p=175"},"modified":"2009-05-13T09:01:05","modified_gmt":"2009-05-13T16:01:05","slug":"thriving-in-tough-times-part-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/community\/thriving-in-tough-times-part-8","title":{"rendered":"Thriving in Tough Times Part 8"},"content":{"rendered":"

Living in Community<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em> (Ecclesiastes 4:10)<\/p>\n

When I left home on Friday morning the grass needed cutting; when I returned home that night it was cut. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my job to cut the grass \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 unless Elaine does it. But Elaine didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do it this time; Angie did. Angie is our neighbor (also our daughter) she borrowed our lawnmower to cut her grass; on the way home (or on the way back) she cut ours. That was nice.<\/p>\n

I started up the Suburban a few weeks back and it sputtered and shook and a warning light came on. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m afraid of warning lights \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I know they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re trying to tell me something, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure what it is they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re saying. Wes knows all about warning lights; he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a mechanical savant. <\/span>I took the car to Wes; he connected a computer to something under the dash, told me I had an injector problem, looked under the hood, found a wire that had been chewed in half (squirrels), patched it together and presto \u00e2\u20ac\u201c no sputter, no shake, no light.<\/p>\n

While I was there I told Wes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wife Sherry (also our daughter) and their two boys that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be back on Saturday to till their garden. Wes knows a lot about cars, but not much about gardens, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m the guy with the tiller.<\/p>\n

Billy came up yesterday (no relation, just a neighbor). Stripey bugs were eating his potato plants. I told Billy that they were Colorado Potato Beetles and how to get rid of them. This is his first year growing potatoes; he just needed a little advice. Billy keeps an eye on the neighborhood while we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re gone, and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not shy about inquiring into the business of a stranger cruising through.<\/p>\n

Things like that happen around here. We look out for one another. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a formal system \u00e2\u20ac\u201c more of a natural outcome of relationship. Some of us are family, but some of us aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t call it anything, but if we did, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d call it community.<\/p>\n

There was another word for it among believers in the early church \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it was \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfellowship\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em>. Well, it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfellowship\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em>; that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an English word. They called it \u00e2\u20ac\u02dckoinonia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em>; we call \u00e2\u20ac\u02dckoinonia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfellowship\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfellowship\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em> in our affluent American Christianity has been watered down. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more reminiscent of doughnuts and coffee before church than it is of the true meaning of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dckoinonia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 – \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcsharing of life through relationship\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m guessing that the watering down of koinonia<\/em> came from our lack of desire to really share our lives with others, and it came from our lack of need. We are, without a doubt, the most affluent society in the history of man. And with that affluence comes a sense of independence, privacy and insulation. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need to \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcshare our life through relationship.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em> We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re fine on our own. If the grass needs cutting, hire a landscaper. Send the car to the mechanic \u00e2\u20ac\u201c better yet, buy a new one. And why bother with a garden anyway? Shop at Whole Foods<\/em> and spend your Saturdays on the golf course or at the mall.<\/p>\n

And \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcsharing of life through relationship\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em> can get sticky. With people come messes \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and messes need cleaning up. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot easier to complain about your neighbor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s grass than to go cut it. And, most of the time, when a neighbor shows up with something that requires \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcsharing of life through relationship\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em>, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in the middle of your<\/em> schedule. You have to put your<\/em> agenda on hold to help him. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not convenient.<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more convenient for me to mind my own business and you mind yours. You keep your grass cut and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll keep mine cut. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let your life spill over into mine and I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let mine spill over into yours. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the convenience affluence buys.<\/p>\n

The problem with that kind of convenience is that one day someone else\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life will spill over into yours, or your life will spill over into theirs.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

Remember the story of the traveler who was robbed and left half-dead in the ditch? A priest came by but quickly moved on. A Levite came by next, but he moved on too. Both of these guys were upstanding citizens \u00e2\u20ac\u201c both supposedly involved in service to God and man.<\/p>\n

It was a pity about the poor man in the ditch, but involving themselves in his problem could be, well \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 problematic. Besides, helping him meant ruining their schedules, and it could be dangerous. The man shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have let himself get into that fix in the first place. Justifying not allowing themselves to get involved in that man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life was easy \u00e2\u20ac\u201c easier than involving themselves.<\/p>\n

A Samaritan came by, someone without standing, even disdained, in the community; but he stopped to help the man in the ditch, bound his wounds and paid for a safe place for him to recover. Funny, that the one least regarded in the community was the first to help \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a story for another day.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

Community, fellowship, koinonia is about \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcsharing of life through relationship\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em>. If you wait until you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re lying bleeding in a ditch to start thinking about it, you may be too late.<\/p>\n

Affluence suffocates community \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcconvenient.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em> Tough times remind us that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not all that independent or self-sufficient and that \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em> can be a pretty lonely number. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/em>(Ecclesiastes 4:12)<\/p>\n

Community provides a hand up when you fall down. And being a part of community, being the one who provides the hand up when another falls down, is a meaningful part of life.<\/p>\n

Whenever I ponder what we should be or how we should act as the Body of Christ, I go back to see how the first church acted. When it came to community, those guys had it down.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Now all the believers were together and had everything in common. So they sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as anyone had a need. And every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple complex, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And every day the Lord added to them those who were being saved.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em> (Acts 2:44-47)<\/p>\n

Well \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just start where we can. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d better go check on Billy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s potatoes.<\/p>\n

Until next week,<\/p>\n

Steve Spillman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Living in Community \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Ecclesiastes 4:10) When I left home on Friday morning the grass needed cutting; when I returned home that night it was cut. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my job to cut the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[438,458],"tags":[462,877,490,492,491,437],"class_list":["post-175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-thriving-in-tough-times","tag-acts-2","tag-community","tag-ecclesiastes-4","tag-fellowship","tag-koinonia","tag-tough-times"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}