Why Church? Understanding the Biblical View of Community

Nov 3, 20246 min read

There is a lot of confusion about church, especially in the United States. Approximately 56 percent of the US population who call themselves Christians do not attend church at all. I believe this is because we do not have a biblical view of the church.

It is a common teaching tool to use different terms, analogies, and stories to teach a concept. This is useful with biblical concepts as long as we do not stray too far from the Bible. One of the easiest things we can do is substitute one English word with another that has a similar meeting. The point of the exercise is to give you a fresh angle to see the truth. In this case, it is one of the fundamental truths about the church.

For this post I am going to use the following substitutions:

Nation = All followers of Christ everywhere, aka the global Church, currently living in exile, waiting for the return of Jesus.

Neighborhood = a local cluster or community of believers

Cultural Community Center = the local church building

The Nation

God’s plan, as He revealed to Abraham, was to build a nation that was in covenant with Him (God). The act of becoming a believer is as an individual, but you become part of the Nation.

As a Nation, our true home is not here and now. It is in the near and coming. We are a Holy Nation which is scattered around the globe, waiting for God to gather us and give us a new home.

When Jesus arrived on the scene, the Jewish people were living at home but under Roman rule. They assumed that the coming of the Messiah would mean a restoration of their kingdom, which would be ruled over by a descendant of David. However, to truly fulfill the prophecy of an eternal Kingdom, sin and death would have to be out of the picture. So, what they were waiting for when Jesus first arrived is what we are waiting for in His second arrival. We are waiting for the promise of being gathered up and taken to a far better Promised Land.

The Neighborhood

If you look at a large city, you will probably find an area where some immigrants and their descendants with similar cultural roots have gathered in neighborhoods. These are called ethnic enclaves. Being among those with a shared culture provides comfort and safety as they learn to navigate a foreign land. They also do this to preserve and pass on their cultural heritage to their children. Often the area is nicknamed something like Little Italy, Koreatown, Little India, or Chinatown. If you go to one of these areas, you will probably get a sense of their culture.

If an immigrant lives in a typical melting pot neighborhood, then the American culture will be a powerful influence on their family. I was raised in those types of neighborhoods. I am a quarter Italian, but what I know about the Italian culture is all from books and media.

The local cluster of believers should represent the culture created by Jesus Christ. The local body of believers may not live in within a few blocks of each other but are close in proximity. Let’s call this neighborhood “Little Kingdom.”

Little Kingdom should be centered on the love of God and the love of others. When you are around the people of Little Kingdom, you should recognize many of the qualities of Jesus and get a sense of Heaven. That is because they are meant to be a light in this world of darkness, as He was.

The members of the Little Kingdom have to be intentional about learning and teaching our culture because it is at odds with the local culture. The local culture is highly influential, and it will teach us to conform to this world.

Cultural Community Center

One of the main things we can do to combat the local culture is to gather with other believers. We need to spend time in their company. We need to learn more about our Kingdom culture and put it into practice. We need to be encouraging and challenging one another. One place we do this is at our church building, which I am calling our cultural community center.

Imagine receiving an invitation to a Polynesian cultural center for a Polynesian feast night (like a luau). When you arrive, everyone is dressed like you and having the same conversations you might have at any gathering. You go to the food table and find pizza. When it starts, you are asked to sit in a lecture hall, and you are given a forty-minute presentation on all the music, food, dances, and customs associated with the feast. It might be informative, and you might learn how to behave if you ever go to a feast, but you did not experience it.

Ideally, when an outsider comes into your Kingdom Community Center, they get a sense of what life will be like in the ages to come. It should not seem like the culture of the surrounding area. As we are transformed to be more like Christ, we will magnify Him and the culture He created. None of us are perfect, but the goal is for people to see enough that they desire the hope they see in us.

As believers come into the community center that currently that need help to become more like Christ, hopefully they will see many examples and be given many opportunities.

Time to switch back to church as I close out this post

Most churches I have attended have praise and worship music which is an essential aspect of Kingdom culture. That is one way we express our love to God. You might say that you can worship God at home, and you should, however, when we do it with other believers, we are exhibiting what the Kingdom looks like.

Revelation 7:9-10 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

The other essential component is the expression of love for each other. It is important to hear from God’s Word on how to act, but we should also show it. We were given gifts that act in cooperation with other church member’s gifts to complete the Body of Christ. As individuals, we cannot fully represent the Kingdom, and we cannot be the entire Body of Christ as single members. We must assemble so that our light combines with the lights of others and our function as a single body part provides greater health and strength to the Body.

1 Corinthians 12:12-13 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

You might say that when you go to church, you don’t feel the Kingdom culture. That could be because you are not where you belong. Spend time in prayer and seek God’s guidance. However, also remember that no church is perfect, and it is your mission as much as it is the church leadership to magnify Christ. This means that attending church is not enough. You must plug in. Churches in the United States are desperate for more dedicated disciples of Christ. They already have plenty of idle seat warmers.

You may say that in past church experiences, you grew weary of always giving more than you received. However, when we agreed to pick up our crosses and follow Christ, we agreed to live sacrificially. Jesus gave us everything before we gave Him anything. I am not saying it will be easy or that we won’t hit low points, but we must keep doing what is right regardless of what others are doing.

Galatians 6:9-10 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

I hope this view of Nation, neighborhood, and community center helps counteract this lie in the United States that faith is a personal thing. That might be true of some world religions, but it is not true for followers of Christ. When we are born again, we are born into a Nation, a new race of people, and a family. We need our local neighborhood cluster of believers, and they need us.

I have another post in my pipeline which compares church to a hospital that will probably be released after the first of the year unless the Holy Spirit says otherwise.

Don't take my word for it. Below are the Passages used or considered in the writing of "Why Church? Understanding the Biblical View of Community" by RD Montgomery:

Genesis 17:1-21

Exodus 19:6

Deuteronomy 7:6

Deuteronomy 10:15

Jeremiah 23:3

Ezekiel 20:34

Isaiah 43:21

Matthew 5:13-16

Matthew 22:35-40

John 8:12

Romans 11:1-6

1 Corinthians 12-13