Community
December 4th, 2006We’re eating dinner earlier this week when my teenage son grabs a new loaf of bread off the counter to further feed his voracious appetite-he’s a bottomless pit. I tell him that he can’t eat the bread because it’s for the homeless folks. The community of students we host in our home once a week makes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every week for one of the homeless shelters here.So here’s what he asks me. “Hey, Dad, if you didn’t have this group in our house every week, would you make sandwiches for the homeless people?”
I didn’t even have to think about it. And since feigning faithfulness would have gotten me no where, I confessed, “No. If we didn’t do it as a community, I wouldn’t be doing it at all. The community makes me better.”
If I wasn’t in a community that seeks to walk with Jesus together, would I pray? I’d like to qualify my response by saying, at least not as much. But the reality is I’m not sure I would.
If I wasn’t in a community that seeks to walk with Jesus together, would I hear God speak through the Scripture? Not me.
If I wasn’t in a community that seeks to walk with Jesus together, would I experience God’s grace? I don’t think so.
If I wasn’t in a community that seeks to walk with Jesus together, would I be disciplined enough in any spiritual practice? Nope.
If I wasn’t in a community that seeks to walk with Jesus together, would I worship? Not much at all.
I could go on. The point is that I’m a lousy Christian by myself. I’m a lousy campus minister by myself. I’m a lousy blogger by myself. I’m not inviting you to my personal pity-party. I’m just telling you how it is. I need committed followers of Jesus to walk with me. They make me better. I need a community of campus ministry colleagues to surround me, to encourage me, to pray with me, to challenge me. They make me better.
So as we go into the Refresh ‘06 Conference next week, let me just get a little vulnerable here and tell you something. I need you. You make me better. We need each other.
Gregg Taylor
Gregg is the Executive Director of the University of Arkansas and Director of Refresh’ 06
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Gregg,
I know this reply is a bit after the fact, but I couldn’t agree more. Left to those that I am normally around in my circle of the church, it is easy to begin to feel like we are fighting a losing battle for passion for Christ in our denom. For Jane(my wife) and I, being able to experience so many others that are fighting for that same passion made Refresh a big part of our re-comittment to engage in that fight day in and day out. Thank you all for that