insert buzz word here

It is so hard for me to talk about something I am so passionate about because I feel like everything that once held value to talk about the 'thing' has been so overused and terribly misused that not only does what I am saying not mean anything anymore -- but any meaning it might hold is not what I intend it to mean at all.
Sorry -- that is the preface to the things I want to say about community and the church. My ideas of these things have continued to grow and change as they are challenged and as God shows me more of His heart. I am convinced however, that this is at the very core of the heart of God and therefore is of utmost importance for the Christian to plunge headfirst into understanding and partaking what spiritual community is. Here is some stuff I've been reading and processing about all of this....

"The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don't, the parts we see and the parts we don't. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. if one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance. You are Christ's body -- that is who you are! You must never forget this. Only as you accept your part of the body does your 'part' mean anything." 1Corinthians12 (from the Message)

- Yeah, it's from the Message, if you want to take that up with me later, well... there are bigger battles elsewhere. I like the way this talks about the need for us to accept our parts, because I feel like what I have seen recently looks like this: Billy has a broken foot but he can still walk on it and simle at the same time so even though the whole body is experiencing pain that is harmful for the body; when the eye looks down to figure out what the schnelly is going on Billy sees he is walking and so everything must be okay and then he keeps walking on his broken foot. He's got to accept that it is broken, but in order to do that, the brain has to help send all those pain signals and deductive reasoning skills and things like this -- he needs the other parts of his body to help him make sense of what is going on. The way we live in 'spiritual community' is more like a bunch of individual body parts that get together at starbucks to pat each other on the back or high five and really that only involves a hand and a back or 2 hands. It is not a complex structure like the body that has to always be intimately working together so that if anything is not doing it's part the whole thing has to stop and figure out what it is and fix it in order to go on. What are we so afraid of? That people will see that our foot is actually a little deformed? Or that our hand doesn't move as fast as we wish it did?
"But God has placed the members each one of them, in the body, just as He desired." 1Corinthians12:18

In our demand that we be practical, we have nudged the Spirit aside and gone after objectives we can reach without Him. We’ve learned to empathize, listen well, and affirm without judging, to free people to be themselves as they define who they are and what they want. Holiness has been bumped out of the center and replaced by healthy adjustment, self-acceptance, and relief from struggle. - Larry Crabb (Safest Place on Earth)

-- Yeah, I am not sure what to say about this except that I've lived in it and I wasn't changed, I may have felt artificially 'safe' but the danger of being truly committed to other people is so much safer than creating a well- insulated world where no one can really penetrate.


I love the church, I do not want to write about the church as a problem, a source of conflict, a place of controversy, but as the Body of Christ for us here and now. - Henri Nowen

-- I love the church, and I long desperately for her to be the shining bride Jesus Christ deserves when he comes in glory to reclaim her. I feel like what the Lord has continually spoken as I have struggled with this deep desire for communit to be more than what I am currently living in is 'Erin, YOU take responsibility' ... I am a body part, and I am responsible for what God has shown me of himself. The best way to promote holiness and healing in others is to pursue your own healing and holiness. No one will ever love the church as much as the Lord Himself, and I am convinced that He has not abandoned her and will restore her to glory.