Individualism and the Church Part I

I was musing over St. John's words yesterday in my devotions. He was the only recorded disciple who actually witnessed the crucifixion of Jesus. The disciple whom Jesus loved gazed helplessly as his rabbi and friend hung helplessly upon a cross. He saw him suffer in silence and finally groan as he gasped his final breath. Oh, how the image of a self-sacrificing savior must have been cemented deep into John's consciousness.

As an older man, John still had etched into the recesses of his mind, the sweat, the dust and the blood of Golgotha. In his first epistle he writes, "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers" (I Jn. 3:16). John connects Jesus' ruthless love for us with the kind of loving community that should exist within the Church. Christ stepped in front of a moving bus for us, so shouldn't be willing to do the same for each other? The answer is a resounding, yes.

Yet, is Christian community today made up of the stuff of Golgotha? Does it look like blood, sweat, tears or grime for the sake of loving relationship? Too often our love is safe, sanitized and benign. Is it true grit love? Or simply sanctuary sentimentality? Too often I fear it is the later.

We have discovered ways to co-exist at arms length, separated and insulated from one another. We shake hands on Sunday and smile, yet the rest of the week are free to pursue our own self-directed goals, dreams, and ambitions without much thought or concern for our brothers and sisters in Christ. How can this be? How has the portrait of self-sacrificial love that was burned into John's consciousness gotten so far removed? How can we be ready to lay our lives down for one another if we do not even know one another? if we are unwilling to commit to a small group community?

Communal life is not an optional appendage for the Church. It is central to the mission of the gospel and to Christ's vision for His Church. We must reclaim a deeper understanding of Christian community and find ways to subvert the individualistic culture of the day with the communal nature of the gospel. We have the power and love at our disposal to model before the world an entirely different way of being human! Individualism and Church cannot co-exist. It was not an option for John, and it's not an option today.

So, how do we combat the idol of individualism within the Church? How do we begin to recognize it in our lives? What are the ways in which we can grow into the kinds of people that would lay our lives down for our brothers? Chime in on this one. I would like to hear your heart.