The Connecting Church: Introduction

Today, I am going to begin a 12-part series from the book, "Connecing Church". I first read this book in 2003 and put it on the shelf. Recently, I pulled the book back out because the book has some teachings, values and desires that I wish and want in my life. Thus, this series is going to journal aspects of the book that speak to me and what I woud like to see happen in my life, my family's life and maybe the life of the church that I minister in.

As the series progress, I will have links to all the entries so they can / will be easy to follow. I will probaly have entries inetween the series so that I will not have 12 same "entries" on the same subject. We will add some other topics. Here are the twelve titles and posts that will be in the series (having them laid out already, will help me stay committed to the series):

Entry 1: Introduction to the Series and Book
Entry 2: Individualism
Entry 3: Five Characheristics of Community Around a Purpose
Entry 4: 10 Ancient Christian Beliefs
Entry 5: 10 Ancient Christian Practices
Entry 6: 10 Ancient christian Virtues
Entry 7: Seven Functions of a Biblical Community
Entry 8: The 4 I's
Entry 9: 5 Charachterics of Community Around Common Place
Entry 10: Consumerism Mentality
Entry 11: 5 Charachteristics of Community Around Possessions
Entry 12: Dreams of Community & Conclusion

Thus, that will be the lay-out of the series. The rest of the post will be focusing on the introduction to the book and the implications for the series.

The book is titled: The Connecting Church: Beyond Small Groups to Authentic Community.. It is written by Randy Frazee. He was the senior pastor at Pantego Bible Church in Arlington, Texas when he wrote the book. He is now a teaching pastor at Willow Creek and trying to turn them from a program church to a church based on community and trying to get their members to make room for life. You can read about his challenge to Willow Creek here.

There are three statements and quotes that I will use from the book that I believe will introduce this series very well and the reason that this is on my heart.

Statemen number one: Biblical Community is the life of Christ on the earth today (page 22). I believe that this statement is true and that it is very accurate when we examine what he considers to be biblical community. I have a true desire for Christ to "be on" earth today; thus I need to be experiencing Biblical Community so the life of Christ can be lived out on the earth today.

Statement number two: The development of meaningful relationships where every member carries a significant sense of belonging is central to what it means to be the church (page 35). I want to have deep relationships with a group of individuals and families where each one of us have a sense of belonging and we are there for each other. We as a group of individuals are there to love God, love one another and serve the church and the community. As a saff person, I would love to see everyone in our church connected to this type of community. It would be FANTASTIC if every member was connected, felt loved and felt that the belonged and had a sense of purpose. We will get into the specifics late on in the series.

Statement number three: The church must do some restructuring. We must develop solutions to our discontinuity and fragmentation lifestyle. We must do more than add worlds to our memers lives. We must focus on what God intended and created us to have - biblical community as members of the body of Christ (highlight page 37). When I take a look at my life and my family life, we have many circles in our lives: church life, school life, extra-curricular lives and more. Our lives at times need to be less fragmented and I think that can be accomplished. We do not need another "circle". However, we do need to learn how to have biblical community. Thus, we as individuals and churches need to look at how we can "restructure" life.

My heart has been heavy for the last 18 months to have biblical community. We, as a family, was beginning to experience it with the church that we were serving/living at in Alabama. While we were at Discovery, we became part of a "home church" and we were part of a great circle of believers who were moving to this concept. The home church was one of seven that was developed to begin the process of having biblical commuities that would tie into Discovery.

I am looking forward to flushing out the this concept and series and how this will apply to our lives. Hopefully, you can take a look and see if it can work in your life. I also hope that if you are part of a biblical communit, you will share with us how it is working for you. Here (below) are the twelve segments. As, I write them, I will be linking them:

Entry 1: Introduction to the Series and Book
Entry 2: Individualism
Entry 3: Five Characheristics of Community Around a Purpose
Entry 4: 10 Ancient Christian Beliefs
Entry 5: 10 Ancient Christian Practices
Entry 6: 10 Ancient Christian Virtues
Entry 7: Seven Functions of a Biblical Community
Entry 8: The 4 I's
Entry 9: 5 Charachterics of Community Around Common Place
Entry 10: Consumerism Mentality
Entry 11: 5 Charachteristics of Community Around Possessions
Entry 12: Dreams of Community & Conclusion