Christians Without Community

As former parishioners at Redeemer, Sarah and I receive the monthly Redeemer Report, which outlines happenings in the mother church and musings from Tim Keller.  In the latest issue, Tim writes about the difficulty of community and urges Redeemer attendees to be fully vested in the lives of neighbors and Christian brothers and sisters, as opposed to merely showing up at a church service.  He actually cites a specific example which I think is far more common than we'd like to think:

I recently learned of a man who lives about three hours from NYC. He has not found a church in his area that he likes. So one Sunday a month he takes a train to New York, goes to Redeemer, eats at a restaurant and sees sites, and then goes home. The rest of the Sundays he watches or listens to religious programming. Sound extreme? It’s not too distant from the experience living in the city, but only attending Redeemer services, and not becoming involved in the life of the community — becoming personally accountable and responsible for others.

Tim hit the nail right on the head.  If you're simply attending services at a church but are for the most part completely divested from the lives of others in the church, never providing an opportunity to share your life with others and vice versa, and refusing to give of yourself in service to the church, it's functionally the same as that three-hour commuter (who I'm sure actually exists).  

Engaging in community is difficult.  Sarah and I, by nature of our distance from our church, have done everything in our power to plug ourselves into the life of the church, whether that be through getting into a discipline of serving regularly or initiating with others to ensure we're not allowing distance to pull us away from encouragement and accountability.  We've never allowed ourselves to use geographical distance as an excuse for lack of engagement.  If we ever find that the commute becomes an insurmountable barrier for us to engage sufficiently in the life of the church, we're committed to talking about it honestly and move to a closer church if that's what's best.  But the effort it takes in being part of a faith community is overwhelmingly worth it.  It's not just the warm and fuzzy feelings of having friends - it's a critical component of the means of grace and our spiritual growth.

Those who opt out of community do so at their peril.