A word that stands out to me in the all of the language that Christians and pastors throw around is the word community. That could partially be because I like the way it rolls off the tongue, but there is certainly a connection with the deeper potential and power of the the word.

One thing that I notice more and more as I get older (maybe it’s always been there I just didn’t notice it as much) is how deficient most people are when it comes to true community. Don’t get me wrong, we have people that we go out to eat with, and guys to watch football with and the ladies have shopping comrades but that doesn’t satisfy the purpose of community. What are your football buddies going to do for you when you are going through a crappy season of your life? Quote statistics or the Cowboys record? That would be more depressing!

We need people that will walk through the fire with us. We need people that will call us on our crap, because you know we’ve got it. We need people to mourn with us when we mourn and rejoice with us when we rejoice. We need people that we can confess our failures to and have them pray for us so that we can be restored. And then we need to turn it around and be the same for them.

Jesus was the greatest example of this. Even the Son of God chose to immerse Himself in community. We weren’t created to do life alone. Isn’t it fascinating that even in the darkest moments of Jesus’ life when His spirit was grieved to the point of desperation that He took 3 guys with Him?

I don’t know exactly what this is going to look like for you, but I do know that it is a necessity to live whole and complete like God intended us to. Put yourself out there. Find a community. Be a community. Cut through the shallow and mundane and get into some real relationships that focus on the real and the raw.