If you spend any time around Christ Church, you’ll hear talk about community groups. One of our core values is to “have intentional community.” Of course, whatever communities we are part of have the potential to shape us and we hope that our shaping is making us more and more like Christ.

Certain theological and biblical convictions make community essential for any church. Being created in the image of God means we are created for community. Our eternal God exists in eternal communion as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Puritans rightly say of God, “God is, in himself, a sweet society.” Just before God fashioned human beings, He said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness … So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:26,27 NIV, emphasis mine). One of the key aspects of being image-bearers of God is our relational nature. In fact, the first time we read in scripture that something “is not good” is in Genesis 2:18: “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’”[1] While this scripture does contain an important understanding of God’s intended design for marriage, it also speaks to the human need to relate to other humans created in God’s image.

When God brought His people out of slavery in Egypt, He formed them into a particular kind of community saying, “you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod. 19:6). The commandments given to the people at Mount Sinai laid out the expectations of how to be this kind of kingdom and nation, emphasizing relationships—how to live in relationship with God and others. In other words, how to live in community with God and one another. In fact, when the people of God found themselves on the receiving end of God’s words of warning from the prophets, it was because community was fracturing. Usually, this was because they had broken communion with God and had taken advantage of or forgotten about the most vulnerable in the community, such as the widow and the orphan.

When the Word took on flesh and dwelt among us, He developed a community of disciples with whom He shared life. Through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, the early Church lived in community with one another and established believing communities throughout the Roman Empire that mainly met in homes. These peculiar communities lived such strangely attractive lives, others joined them despite great opposition from the outside world. When this earth passes away and we live in the new heaven and new earth, we will live in uninterrupted communion with God and with one another. Why? Because that is how God made us from the beginning.

We emphasize community groups because we know we are made for relationships and because we are called to be a particular kind of community, shaped by the Word and the Spirit. We emphasize community groups because God calls us to be “devoted to one another in love” (Rom. 12:9), to “spur one another to love and good deeds” and “encourage one another” (Heb. 10:25). We emphasize community groups because Jesus calls us to make disciples and disciple-making takes places in community. As John Wesley said, “There is no such thing as solitary religion.” These communities of Christ are the presence and foretaste of the heavenly New Jerusalem who make the bold claim that Jesus is Lord above all powers, rulers, and principalities.

[1] Please note that the word helper is not a diminished role. In fact, the Hebrew word here “ezer” is used to refer to God throughout the Old Testament more than anyone else.