From Individualism to Community
Moving towards a deeper understanding of our Salvation
Happy 3rd Week in Ordinary Time! In this issue, we’re continuing to look at a deeply restorative, transformative, and abundant life with Jesus in community. As a quick refresher, last week we discussed:
Many people find themselves in a never-ending season of dryness/desolation, with little idea for how to move forward besides the next emotional high or intellectual download
There are seven common assumptions many of us fall into: individualism, self-reliance, radical traditionalism, emotionalism, proselytism, abstraction, and empiricism. These assumptions are inherently limited, and hinder our walk with Jesus.
You can catch up if you missed it right here!
This week we’re picking up the thread by exploring how we move from individualism to community.
In some ways, my childhood feels like it comes straight out of the movie “Jesus Revolution,” which dramatizes the Jesus Movement that occurred in the 1970s. I grew up around young adults who played guitars and hacky sack, braided rope into rosaries to give away, and drove vans across Canada preaching the Gospel. When I was a kid, I thought that was the coolest thing a person could do.
When I turned 18, I signed up to become one of those young adult missionaries. It was one of the best years of my life.
Now I don’t mean to idealize my childhood or the year I spent travelling around Canada. It was a beautiful experience, but full of flaws, just as any movement involving real people is. That said, those days impressed a fundamental law of the Christian life on me: the Kingdom of God has other people in it.
It’s all too easy for Christians today to fall into a Westernized/post-Enlightenment theology that primarily views Salvation as a personal matter, an outgrowth of the individualism that has overwhelmed our culture.
It’s true that through the Cross, I’m saved into a personal relationship with Jesus - but there’s more to the Christian life. Jesus doesn’t just save me into a relationship with Him - He welcomes me into His Kingdom. Not only that, when Jesus welcomes me into His Kingdom, I am also welcomed into His family as a beloved child of God.
The implications of this are huge. Being saved is not just a matter of personal transformation - it’s a matter of walking as a family, a Church, into a union with Christ that will last beyond the end of time.
Many Christians in recent years have recognized this and have tried counteract it by re-emphasizing the importance of community. But still, most Christian content about community is really about how community supports our individual faith journeys, and not how it is the very context for life in the Kingdom.
I truly believe that communal discipleship is what Jesus intended for our walk with Him. I think He wanted us to have deep relationships with other followers, to re-enact His life through the Liturgical year together, to share what we have and live in common. Jesus wants more from us than our intellectual assent to the idea of the Resurrection - He wants us to be a part of this messy, dysfunctional, confusing, and beautiful reality we call the Church.
Putting it Into Practice
Many Christians do have moments of intentional community (e.g. small group, Bible study, fellowship events etc.) that usually look something like this:
Check in on how we’re doing in the spiritual life
Look at some aspect of the spiritual life
Resolve to live out that aspect individually and to hold one another accountable
While there’s nothing wrong with this structure per se, it still assumes the spiritual life is something we do on our own, with occasional support from others. This week, we want to invite you to try something different.
The practice for this week is to take up a spiritual discipline communally.
The first discipline I attempted in this way was the weekly Sabbath. A few years ago, our community decided to start taking Sundays as a day of rest together. While we had all tried to practice the Sabbath individually to varying degrees, this was the first time we embraced this practice communally, beginning together with Holy Mass, enjoying a meal in each other’s company, and closing the day together in prayer.
There are many disciplines in the Christian tradition that lend themselves well to community. Even though some disciplines are by nature done in solitude, we are never disconnected from the communion of believers in our walk with God. To help you, we’ve put together a list of ideas:
Please note - we’re not saying you have to start a small group or do anything on a large scale just yet. The invitation here is simply to see your walk with God as something shared with the Church.
Deeper Dive
This article from our editor Julia Yurchesyn - You Don’t Have to Start a Small Group
The excellent and extremely practical book Find Your People, by Jennie Allen
Benediction
I’ll leave you with this good word (bene = good, dicere = word) from my friend Isaac Payne. Consider adding it to your prayer times this week if that would be helpful for you!
Lord, thank you for the gift of your Kingdom.
A Kingdom not built on the strength of one person, but upon the communion of many. Thank you for redeeming us, not only to have a personal relationship with you, but also to belong to a family, a body of believers, a Church—with whom we can live out this abundant life together.
Help us, Lord, to move beyond ourselves and to embrace the beauty and challenge of living out our faith in community. Holy Spirit, teach us to support one another, to pray together, and to experience the life of the Son through the rhythms of the liturgical year.
May we be intentional in sharing our joys and burdens, and being reflections of the love and unity you desire for your people. Transform us, Lord, as we grow in communion with you and with each other, so that we may be a light to the world and glorify your Most Holy name.
We are grateful for where and among whom you have placed us. Amen.
Thanks for reading! Next week, we’ll continue examining these assumptions, looking at how to move from self reliance to the Liturgical life.
God Bless,
James