Movement of Healthy Churches: Sign 6 – Authentic Community

Having an authentic community where we live life together is a sign of a healthy church. How do we form such community? Ps Mervin Chia shares his insights.

In my previous article ‘Become a Disciple Before You Try Making Disciples’, I mentioned that “We must be attentive to Christ’s presence in His Word. Christ calls us at every moment through His Word, and by His Spirit to participate in His faithful obedience to the Father.” There we find ourselves in the Divine community – the Trinitarian Godhead. Our discipleship to Christ relates intimately with who we are, and how we engage communally. Scottish Theologian, James Torrance says, “What is needed today is a better understanding of the person not just as an individual but as someone who finds his or her true being in communion with God and with others, the counterpart of a trinitarian God”.^[1]                  

I love authentic community.

The beauty of how it began is that it was neither forced nor engendered – but through the grace and fellowship of friends, extending outward to becoming a community.

Organic

Imagine a game of chess between two friends from different generations, extending toward setting up a telegram group. At our first chess meet, it drew others in organically, out of curiosity, “Why are these people gathered at the Church staff pantry?”, and interest, “Ooh, I play chess, I like to have a game!”. Soon, it extends beyond the two, into a community. They came to my place to play Nintendo Switch and other board games too. The beauty of how it began is that it was neither forced nor engendered – but through the grace and fellowship of friends, extending outward to becoming a community.

Being comfortable does not happen overnight. It requires trust that is built over time spent with each other. 

Intentional

Another community I have are my former Royal Ranger boys and now they are my friends. The Royal Rangers program provided the avenue for me to know them. It started with dinners after the Royal Ranger program ended, it became stayovers at my place, hikes, and vacations together.

Does it require intentionality? It is intentional to the degree it provides an “ample structure” for us to do life together. We share life updates, watch shows, and play games, as well as celebrate birthdays together. At times, it calls for us to pray for one another, where I intentionally ask if the individual is comfortable sharing the situation with the others and having the community pray for him. Being comfortable does not happen overnight. It requires trust that is built over time spent with each other. 

Sustainable

It is from here that I tell my leaders that we need not plan elaborate outings to invite our loved ones and friends, rather I ask, “What are you already doing together as a cell where you are most comfortable sharing life? Now bring visitors into that fellowship”. When others see how we truly love one another, they will know that we are Christ’s disciples. Furthermore, it is sustainable and real, we don’t have to fabricate events that create unrealistic expectations for the “next big thing”. Rather, to keep the main thing the main thing, we want to point people, both our existing congregants as well as visitors, and unbelievers that the Gospel indwells the community of saints (Communio Sanctorum), the priesthood of believers.

When others see how we truly love one another, they will know that we are Christ’s disciples.

Here, we see the inextricable relationship between discipleship and community. The onus is on every disciple within the community to ‘be-for-the-other’ just as Christ became and is the Other ‘with us’ and ‘for us’. It might seem that I am rather extroverted from the way I describe an outgoing and sociable persona, but I am an extremely introverted person. I could sit at my desk to research, read, and study for hours on end interacting with material than with people. I think this comes from a desire to see Acts 2:42-44 enacted as an embodied community today, how will that look in my Church?  

During my studies, I was introduced to the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was pivotal in shaping my thoughts on discipleship and community formation. In his work ‘Life Together’ Bonhoeffer says,

“Every human idealized image that is brought into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be broken up so that genuine community can survive. Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial.”[2]

What Bonhoeffer proposes is counterintuitive to our pragmatic, and programmatic orientation toward ideation, intention, and action. While deliberate execution brings certain results, we might find that it convolutes and even conflicts with who truly gets the credit, God or us – between our Church boards asking, “What have you done?”, and at Thanksgiving when we say, “All glory to God.” As we dream up, gear up, and launch out towards expanding the Kingdom, and the churches, or ministries we lead in 2025, let’s ‘be’ the community that Christ ‘builds’, recognizing that unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain (Psalm 127:1). 

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[1] James B. Torrance, Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace (Carlisle, U.K.: Paternoster Press, 1996), 27.

[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together and Prayerbook of the Bible, ed. Gerhard Ludwig Müller, Albrecht Schönherr, and Geffrey B. Kelly, trans. Daniel W. Bloesch and James H. Burtness, vol. 5, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996), 36.