In his Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer makes a brilliant observation about the importance of confession of sins in the creation of a grace-full community.  He insists that if people are not confessing their sins to one another in some forum (accountability or mentoring relationships, small groups, close spiritual friendships) that only a thin veneer of fellowship can exist: “The final break-through to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners.  The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner.” 

Grace cannot be unleashed where sin is unknown.  And this requires that we be intentional about being real. 

My favorite Dietrich Bonhoeffer book is Life Together, a reflection on the nature of church, mission, and community, written out of the context of leading an underground seminary prior to his arrest by the Nazis.

One of his most profound observations on community is that we face a very real temptation to love our dream of what a community should be more than we love the actual people in the community: “The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God's grace speedily shatters such dreams.” 

If left unchecked, such an attitude leads to a dissatisfied, critical spirit, and blocks the person’s capacity to grow in community and in the formative work God wants to do through that community in the person’s life.  “He who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.”

Maybe this doesn’t happen to you, but I find that some people are easier for me to love than others.  (As pastors we probably aren’t supposed to say that out loud, but there it is.)  Some people can be, como se dice, difficult.  And thank God.  If Jesus is making us into people who love God with our whole being and love others as much as we love ourselves, it stands to reason that we will need difficult people in our lives to learn how to do this whole love thing well.  Without difficult people, we would be impeded in our spiritual formation. 

Thanks to Jared Totten of Critical Thinking and Christians in Context for his generous review of Embodying Our Faith (and for titling his Amazon review “The best book on reaching the postmodern mind”!).  Great to get a positive nod from the young-restless-reformed camp, so to speak . . . Lord bless you as you serve him brother -

I got a phone call this morning from a brother who met God in some big ways at Life, and has since moved to another state.  We were reflecting on where he is now, how far he’s come since those early days, and the stark night and day difference God’s grace has made in his life (oh how these phone calls recharge the pastoral soul!  But I digress…).  “It changed my life,” was his summary.  “It really changed my life.”

The life-change conversation kept circling back around to two things: relationships and mission. 

More and more I am convinced that both of these elements are indispensible in the creation of community.  The relationship part is a given, but without mission I believe it becomes misshapen.  Those who pursue community for community’s sake often miss it, or find it short-lived.  Their focus is inevitably drawn back to themselves, and their experience of community is evaluated on how well their relationships are fulfilling their needs and longings.  They are easily and frequently disappointed in those around them, and frustrated that their dream of community is not being realized.  They make changes often (better friends, better small groups, better churches), but rarely make the one change that matter: changing their own approach to community.

According to St. Francis de Sales, the most effective way to learn to pray, and more importantly, to be spiritually formed as we pray, is through combining prayer with meditation on the life and passion of Jesus in the Gospels.

“If you contemplate him frequently in meditation, your whole soul will be filled with Him, you will grow in His Likeness, and your actions will be molded on Him . . . Children learn to speak by hearing their mother talk, and stammering forth their childish sounds in imitation; and so if we cleave to the Savior in meditation, listening to his words, watching his actions and intentions, we shall learn in time, through His grace, to speak, will, and act like Himself.”

(adapted from Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales)

Big thanks to Jeff Friend for his warm review of Embodying Our Faith in Worship Leader magazine this month!  Thanks Jeff for taking the time to read and review the book.