Consider how your life story fits into
and contributes toward the building of community in your sphere of influence.
Remember your individual story fits into God’s larger story, the metanarrative
- the overarching story of humankind. For Christians, this metanarrative is the
biblical narrative of salvation history - creation, fall, redemption and
finally, new creation.
The first thing that popped into my mind
when I hear the word “community” is Eastwood. This is the place I spend the
majority of my time in, because I am working as a GP there six days a week!
However, I am going to focus this journal
entry on the Christian community. It was around 2013 when I came to realise
that one can be extremely involved and devoted to a church without actually building
deep interpersonal relationships. One can be doing heaps of “discipleship”
courses without much discipleship happening. I had grown up task-orientated and
goal-orientated because all the role models around me were like that. The church environment I was in was also task-orientated
and goal-orientated. Church co-workers were given spreadsheets with tick boxes
asking us to tick off the number of times we prayed and studied the bible
during the week. Each church co-worker got assigned a few people who we had to
regularly talk to and follow up on, and there was a tick box for that too.
Although the environment drove us to do certain things, once I got out of that
environment, I did not feel a desire to do these things spontaneously. I’m not
saying that there is anything wrong with tick boxes to help us get organised.
But some people (including me) may be ticking off these boxes without a genuine
care for people and get a false sense of security that they are doing something
for God whenever they ticked these boxes. There were a few deep interpersonal
relationships formed from that environment which continued until today, but the
proportion is very small when I take into account how many people I had fellowship
with during my time there.
In 2016, I changed church in order to do my
field education at a Baptist church. This church is great, but I did not have
the guts or the energy to become very involved with the people in this church.
Another example of a Christian community
experience was the short medical mission trip I went on this year with Care Ministries
International (CMI). Teamwork happened in a pretty amazing fashion. I felt as
though I had gone back into the New Testament era where the community of Christ
lived together in love. During this trip, I felt a bit closer to where God
wants me to be. There is also a sense of “inheritance” during this trip. The
previous mission trips to Cambodia organised by CMI comprised of very
experienced doctors and dentists around retirement age. This time, the doctors
and dentists are mostly under 35, and including several “parent and child”
pairings. More on the trip in the following link:
Now, I am in a transitional period. My
husband and I go to different churches. Chris is certain that he wants to stay
in his church, which meant I am the one who has to make the switch. His church
seems like a great church, and many brothers and sisters there have helped us
out in our wedding. Rick Warren said, “We are created for community. You are
called to belong, not just believe.” May the hand of God lead the way!
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