community for two?

in our church community we have been wrestling with the idea of what it means to do things as a community. specifically we have been wrestling with whether or not we should all go out and serve others as a group, or whether it is ok for smaller numbers of us to go out and serve, and then report back to the larger community.

i don't think that we all need to go out and do the same thing together, and that it is better for us to go out in smaller groups. this is especially true in larger church bodies where it is literally impossible to get the entire congregation to do the same event. our church community is small, and i am not saying that we should never try to do something with all of us together. if we can come up with something, that is great, but i do not think that should be the focus.

i think it has direct parallels to our spiritual gifting. are all teachers? are all apostles? the answer to the rhetorical questions is "no". are all called to minister at the soup kitchen? are all called to minister to rich people in beverly hills? again, the answer is "no".

i also think there are parallels to the way Jesus sent the disciples out. the went in groups of two. Jesus didn't have the entire group go to each village and city. logistically this made the most sense, so that many cities could be covered, and it also gave each person an opportunity to flap their wings a bit, and have direct involvement in ministry. they then came back and reported on their ministries (plural), and were no less of a community because of it. (it may have also opened up a third option that our community has not thought about yet - the whole church doing the same thing - preaching the gospel - but not with everyone together.)

God has given us natural and supernatural gifts, and it is important that we think about what these gifts are, so that we can serve in ways that make sense. we need to serve the kingdom within the things that we already "do". for me, an example is being a musician. i should serve the kingdom in the music i create - that it would be aesthetically as good as possible, and that the content would be honoring to God. it also makes sense for me to be in contact with people in the music industry, and to minister the gospel to them as i interact with them.

gifts are given so that we may build up the larger christian community, not so that each individual community can do the same exact activities together. i don't think it would be particularly effective to have everyone in the church trying to minister to those in the music industry. for one thing, some may have no interest in that area of life (which is ok) and for another, not all christians have the ability (gifting?) to effectively minsiter the gospel to those living more extreme lives, and may actually do more harm than good to the cause of the gospel.

so i don't think our goal in serving/ministering the gospel to others should be to find something that we can all do together, because we think that is what it means to be a community, or because that is what it means to be missional. instead, i think we need to realize that we are already a community, and that as such, we are called to go out in the various ways that God has called us to serve.