Teamwork is essential to our Christian witness.

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

I have often said to couples on their wedding day that what they are together is greater than what they are apart.

Arkansas River, Colorado

This also holds true for the bride of Christ, his Church. What we are together is greater than what we are when we’re separated from each other. However, the sad reality of the Christian community today is that we’re losing what it means to be community. We don’t know how to do life together.

For too many years we’ve tried to make the church the fulfillment of the American dream. We’ve tried to make it bigger, faster and more productive. We’ve defined success by the size of our budgets and buildings, and by how many butts we cram in our pews.

And we wonder why people are silently leaving the institutional church. Though we might know how to build bigger and better church businesses, have we lost what it means to be community?

Paul describes the essence of community in his letter to his friends in Colossae.

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”
Colossians 3:12-13 English Standard Version

It’s time for the church to stop worrying about preserving the institution and reclaim its place as the community of people who are attempting to follow Jesus.

We are people who have been claimed by Christ’s sacrificial blood so that we might live in fellowship with him. As forgiveness is the key to this fellowship, may it also be the key to our fellowship with each other.

What a force this fellowship will be when we reclaim the gift of godly community.

Copyright Douglas P Brauner