Cultivating a Healthy Community

Pastor: Jonathan Murrell

1 John 4:7

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God."

The church should be THE place where everyone experiences love. Christians are a new creation. Born of God. Possess the spiritual DNA to love unconditionally. But if you’ve gone to church for a long time… You’ve probably experienced the good and bad within church community.

Healthy vs Unhealthy Church Communities

● Comfortable vs Clique

● Caring vs Karen

● Companionship vs Counterfeit

2 Corinthians 5:20

"Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God."

Christians are the ambassadors of Jesus to the world. Armed with the truth. We reflect His character of love. But if we can’t even do that on our turf with home field advantage... What are we doing?

And so for my regular church goers, you may have experienced the healthy. Or you may have experienced the unhealthy. But either way, can we learn from those experiences… And then take a good and truthful look at our community. But there’s always room for improvement. A community is made up of individuals. We need people to buy in.

1. Welcome everyone

* Romans 15:7

"Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God."

“True loneliness is being surrounded by people and not noticed.” If you’ve ever felt truly alone, you’ll make sure no one else does.

Proslambano = Lay hold with initiative. Aggressively receive with personal interest.

This is what Jesus does for us. Receives us. Scoops us up. We are His! He doesn’t wait for us to come to Him… No. He goes and gets us. At church, do you look to receive people like spoons? Like Jesus does? Do you have purpose and motivation to receive and welcome them?

The Power of Questions

There is a skill behind asking good questions. Jesus was the master question asker. Do a study on that. Jesus didn’t hold Q and A sessions. He did Q and Q sessions. Got asked lots of questions. But most of the time, He responded with a question. Got people to open up, to engage, and showed them the truth.

Be interested. Not interesting.

In humility, esteem and honor others better than yourself. Most of the time, people want to talk about themselves. The sin of selfish ambition stirs in our hearts. We want to talk about our interests. So we’ll listen. But we’re just waiting our turn to talk. Jesus used questions for His ministry. We should too.

2. Do life together (Acts 2)

Acts 2:44-46

"Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart."

The early church shared their lives with each other. They shared their possessions and meals. They shared in their worship and study of Jesus in their homes.But they made close bonds because they shared experiences of being the new church. They were persecuted. They needed to protect each other. They were the definition of doing life together.

We need to have what the early church had: “simplicity of heart.” This Greek word means unhindered and uncomplicated. Properly it means not stoney ground. Without rocks. My prayer is that local church communities would be like this. Friendships would be simple and natural. The community would be uncomplicated. And our sharing becomes unhindered.

The power of Invitations

Mark 1:17-18

"Then Jesus said to them, 'Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.' They immediately left their nets and followed Him."

From right there, their lives changed forever. Jesus was going to use them to change the world. It all started with an invite. One invite can change someone’s life. I’m sure you can look back and see how God used an invite to change your life.

When you invite others to things, be intentional and personal. But the best thing is to personally invite them. It’s different. “I thought of you specifically. I want you next to me. Can you come?”

Sometimes they accept… Sometimes they don’t… But we need to get over the fear of rejection. Receiving a “no” or getting ghosted is better than just not trying. Invite people God is calling you to invest in. Invite from outside “your comfort circle.” Then let God take care of the rest.

* Psalm 122:1.

"I was glad when they said to me, 'Let us go into the house of the LORD.'”

So at church, when someone walks through those doors…

Let’s welcome everyone.

- People should feel good in this room. Not because we’re good.

- But because God is good and we want Him to do good things through us.

Let’s do life together.

- Let’s make this a place where godly relationships grow in un-rocky ground.

- Let’s invite people to join us in life.

We were created for community. Let’s do our best to make sure our community is a healthy one.