The Compelling Community: Where God's Power Makes a Church Attractive
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The Compelling Community: Where God's Power Makes a Church Attractive
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Overview
About the Author
Jamie Dunlop serves as an associate pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church. He is the coauthor (with Mark Dever) of The Compelling Community and author of Budgeting for a Healthy Church. Jamie and his wife Joan have three school-aged children and live on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Two Visions of Community
Two churches in my neighborhood offer a study in surprising similarity.
One church is a theologically liberal congregation; the other is the theologically conservative church where I pastor. Both started meeting in 1867. Both grew considerably with the city of Washington, DC, in the years surrounding the Second World War. Both struggled as the surrounding blocks were decimated by a wave of race-charged rioting. By the late twentieth century, both congregations had dwindled in number and consisted largely of older commuters from the suburbs. In response, both purged their roles to remove members who no longer attended. The future of both was in question.
But then starting in the late 1990s, both began to grow. Both attracted young people who were moving into the city, and both regrew roots into the neighborhood. For many years, the growth of both churches was roughly the same: the membership of one never strayed more than a hundred or so people from the other. Both congregations care for the poor in the neighborhood. Both buzz with activity on Sunday mornings and throughout the week. Both receive attention in the secular press for their tightknit community.
But despite a similar history, these two churches could not differ more at their core. When I first moved to Washington in the 1990s, the pastor of this other church didn't call himself a Christian. He didn't believe in the atonement, didn't believe in physical resurrection, and, as he explained to me one day, wasn't even sure he believed in God! Whereas our church logo cites Romans 10:17 ("Faith comes from hearing"), theirs describes them as "the church of the open communion." Ours is a congregation centered on the historic Christian gospel. Theirs is a congregation, I would maintain, focused on an entirely different gospel. And yet both appear to thrive.
My point? You don't need God to "build community" in a church.
How to Build Church Community without the Gospel
Now, if you're reading this book you probably do believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. You probably do believe in a holy God, in the reality of sin, in the power of the atonement. And beyond that, you likely hold the Bible to be the perfect Word of God. So for you, community without the gospel isn't a danger. Right?
That's exactly where I intend to challenge you. I think we build community without the gospel all the time.
Leave aside the theologically liberal church I just described. My concern for the evangelical church isn't so much that we're out to deny the gospel in fostering community. Instead, my concern is that, despite good intentions, we're building communities that can thrive regardless of the gospel.
I'll give you an example. Let's say that a single mother joins my church. Who is she naturally going to build friendships with? Who is naturally going to understand her best? Other single moms, of course. So I encourage her to join a small group for single moms, and sure enough, she quickly integrates into that community and thrives. Mission accomplished, right? Not quite.
What occurred is a demographic phenomenon and not necessarily a gospel phenomenon. Single moms gravitate to each other regardless of whether or not the gospel is true. This community is wonderful and helpful — but its existence says nothing about the power of the gospel.
In fact, most of the "tools" we use to build community center on something other than the gospel:
• Similar life experience: Singles groups, newly married Bible studies, and young professionals networks build community based on demographic groupings.
• Similar identity: Cowboy churches, motorcycle churches, arts churches, and the like are all gospel-believing churches with something other than the gospel at the core of their identity.
• Similar cause: Ministry teams for feeding the hungry, helping an elementary school, and combating human trafficking build community based on shared passion for a God-honoring cause.
• Similar needs: Program-based churches build community by assembling people into programs based on the similarity of their felt needs.
• Similar social position: Sometimes a ministry — or an entire church — gathers the "movers and shakers" in society.
I recognize this probably sounds ridiculous. In the space of a hundred words I've critiqued Bible studies for single moms, singles groups, and hunger ministries. But stick with me for a moment. Underneath all these community-building strategies is something we need to expose and examine with fresh eyes.
Let's go back to the small group for single moms. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be with people of similar life experience. It's entirely natural and can be spiritually beneficial. But if this is the sum total of what we call "church community," I'm afraid we've built something that would exist even if God didn't.
My goal in writing this book is not for us to feel guilty whenever we enjoy a friendship that would probably exist even if the gospel wasn't true. My goal is not to encourage churches to aim at some entirely unrealistic model of relationship where we never share anything in common but Christ. Rather, my goal is twofold:
1. To recognize that building community purely through natural bonds has a cost as well as a benefit. Often, we look at tools like the single moms small group and see only positive. But there is a cost as well: if groups like this come to characterize community in our churches, then our community ceases to be remarkable to the world around us.
2. To adjust our aspiration. Many relationships that naturally form in our churches would exist even if the gospel weren't true. That's good, right, and helpful. But in addition, we should aspire for many relationships that exist only because of the gospel. So often, we aim at nothing more than community built on similarity; I want us to aim at community characterized by relationships that are obviously supernatural. And by supernatural I don't imply the mystical, vaguely spiritual sense in which pop culture uses the term. I mean the very biblical idea of a sovereign God working in space and time to do what confounds the natural laws of our world.
Two Types of Community
In this book, I'll contrast two types of community that exist in gospel-preaching, evangelical churches. Let's call one "gospel-plus" community. In gospel-plus community, nearly every relationship is founded on the gospel plus something else. Sam and Joe are both Christians, but the real reason they're friends is that they're both singles in their 40s, or share a passion to combat illiteracy, or work as doctors. In gospel-plus community, church leaders enthusiastically use similarity to build community. But as a whole, this community says little about the power of the gospel.
Contrast this with "gospel-revealing" community. In gospel-revealing community, many relationships would never exist but for the truth and power of the gospel — either because of the depth of care for each other or because two people in relationship have little in common but Christ. While affinity-based relationships also thrive in this church, they're not the focus. Instead, church leaders focus on helping people out of their comfort zones to cultivate relationships that would not be possible apart from the supernatural. And so this community reveals the power of the gospel.
You can't physically see the gospel; it's simply truth. But when we encourage community that is obviously supernatural, it makes the gospel visible. Think of a kid rubbing a balloon against his shirt to charge it with static electricity. When he holds it over someone's head with thin, wispy hair, what happens? The hair reaches for the balloon. You can't see the static electricity. But its effect — the unnatural reaction of the hair — is unmistakable. The same goes for gospel-revealing community.
Yet gospel-revealing community isn't our first inclination, is it? Our tendency is toward gospel-plus community because it "works." Niche marketing undergirds so many church growth plans because it "works." People gravitate to people just like themselves. If I told you to take a church of two hundred and grow it to four hundred in two years, you'd seem foolish not to build community based on some kind of similarity.
A friend of mine recently received such a growth directive. He pastors the English-language congregation of an ethnically Chinese church, and the advice he received consisted nearly entirely of which type of similarity he should focus on. "You should be the church for second generationals." "You should be the church for young professionals." "You should stick with English-speaking people of Chinese descent." And so forth. If you want to draw a crowd, build community through similarity. That's how people work.
So is there anything wrong with this? Isn't this just a basic law of organizational development? Does it matter how we draw the crowd so long as once they arrive we tell them the gospel?
Yes. It does matter. When Christians unite around something other than the gospel, they create community that would likely exist even if God didn't. As a modern-day tower of Babel, that community glorifies their strength instead of God's. And the very earnest things they do to create this type of community actually undermine God's purposes for it. Gospel-plus community may result in the inclusive relationships we're looking for. But it says little about the truth and power of the gospel. To understand why, let's examine God's purposes for the local church in the book of Ephesians.
Supernatural Community Is God's Plan for the Church
What is God's plan for the local church? The apostle Paul lays it out in Ephesians chapters 2 and 3. It begins with the gospel, in 2:1–10. We were "dead in the trespasses and sins" (v. 1). But God "made us alive together with Christ" (v. 5). "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast" (vv. 8–9).
But that gospel doesn't end with our salvation; it leads to some very disruptive implications. Implication number one: unity. As Paul writes of Jews and Gentiles at the end of chapter 2, God abolished the dividing wall of hostility "that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father" (vv. 15–18). Note that the gospel alone creates this unity: the cross is how Christ put to death their hostility. After all, what else could ever bring together two peoples with such different history, ethnicity, religion, and culture?
Now, what is the purpose for this unity between Jews and Gentiles? Skip down to chapter 3, verse 10: God's intent was "that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places."
Consider a group of Jews and Gentiles who share nothing in common except for a centuries-old loathing for one another. For a less extreme, modern-day parallel, think of liberal Democrats and libertarian Republicans in my own neighborhood. Or the disdain the Prada-shod fashionista feels for the Schlitz-swilling NASCAR crowd (multiplied many times over, of course). Bring them together into the local church where they rub shoulders on a regular basis, and things explode, right? No! Because of the one thing they do have in common — the bond of Christ — they live together in astonishing love and unity. Unity that is so unexpected, so contrary to how our world operates, that even the "rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms" sit up and take notice. God's plans are amazing, aren't they!
Gospel-revealing community is notable along two dimensions (see figure on p. 26). First, it's notable for its breadth. That is, it stretches to include such peoples as divergent as Jew and Gentile. As Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, "If you love those who love you, what reward do you have?" (Matt. 5:46). One way in which this community glorifies God is by reaching people who, apart from supernatural power, would never unite together. Remember Ephesians 2:18: "For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father." Second, this community is notable for its depth. That is, it doesn't merely bring people together to tolerate each other, but to be so tightly committed that Paul can call them a "new humanity" (2:15) and a new "household" (2:19, NIV). Paul reaches for the natural world's deepest bonds — the bonds of ethnicity and family — to describe this new community in the local church.
Supernatural depth and breadth of community make the glory of an invisible God to be visible. This is the ultimate purpose statement for community in the Ephesian church. This is the ultimate purpose statement for community in churches today. Is it the ultimate purpose for community in your church?
Let me summarize two foundational elements from Ephesians 2–3 before we move on:
1. This community is characterized by commonality in Christ. It's said that "blood is thicker than water." Our world's history is a long story of tribal conflict where no one is closer than those who are family. That is, with one critical exception of course: the local church. When two people share Christ — even if everything else is different — they are closer than even blood ties could ever bring them. Again, they are the family of God.
2. If this community is not supernatural, it doesn't work. By "work" I mean "fulfill God's plans for community." What if, instead of uniting around Christ, Jews and Gentiles figured out some nifty organizational trick for them to coexist? Would that make known "the manifold wisdom of God"? No. It would glorify their wisdom and their ability. And it could never approximate the breadth and depth of community described in Ephesians. What if Jewish Christians just loved Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians just loved Gentile Christians? Not a bad start ... but compared to the community Paul describes in Ephesians, it says relatively little about the power of God in the gospel.
Does this mean that we should flee any relationships where we share Christ plus something else? No. God uses our sociological affinities. Every church has a certain culture, a certain feel, a certain majority. It would be dishonest to suggest otherwise, to say that a congregation shares nothing in common but Christ. Like is attracted to like, and that's a natural reality. There's nothing inherently wrong with people's comfort with the familiar. Nonetheless, an important question is, What are you going to build with? What tools are you going to use? Will you use the natural tools of "ministry by similarity"? Or, while recognizing our tendency toward similarity, will you set your aspiration on community where similarity isn't necessary — because of the supernatural bond of the gospel? As the apostle writes, "For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds" (2 Cor. 10:4). The difference will show itself over time. When you build with natural tools, over time the natural divisions between people will become set in concrete. Use natural tools to reach middle-class whites, and over time your church will be middle-class white. But when you build with supernatural tools, over time those natural divisions begin to soften. An all-white church will, remarkably, slowly perhaps, become less all-white. This has been the story of my own congregation.
While recognizing our tendency toward similarity, we should aspire toward community where similarity isn't necessary — where no strand of similarity in the congregation explains the whole congregation. That kind of community defies naturalistic explanations.
God has great purposes for the community of your church: to safeguard the gospel, to transform lives and communities, to shine as a beacon of hope to the unconverted. Community that does this is demonstrably supernatural. It is not community designed around the gospel plus some other bond of similarity. It is community that reveals the gospel. Yet too often, community in our churches better testifies to our own prowess in niche marketing than to the supernatural at work. Why is this?
Pressure to Build Gospel-Plus Community
Quite simply, gospel-plus community seems more reliable than the supernatural community we see in Ephesians 2–3. We're sure we know how to make it happen. Compare community building to the breeding of some endangered species at the zoo. You could just let those black-footed ferrets have at it in nature's own special way and hope for progeny to blossom. But with so much at stake, you'd never leave it to chance, would you? So the zoo in my town is measuring timing, and temperature, and diet, and whatever else you can imagine to help black-footed ferrets breed as reliably as possible.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Compelling Community"
by .
Copyright © 2015 Mark Dever and Jamie Dunlop.
Excerpted by permission of Good News Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Copyright,
Series Preface,
Introduction,
Part 1: A Vision for Community,
1 Two Visions of Community,
2 A Community Given by God,
3 Community Runs Deep,
4 Community Goes Broad,
Part 2: Fostering Community,
5 Preach to Equip Your Community,
6 Pray Together as a Community,
7 Build a Culture of Spiritually Intentional Relationships,
8 Structural Obstacles to Biblical Community,
Part 3: Protecting Community,
9 Addressing Discontentment in the Church,
10 Addressing Sin in the Church,
Part 4: Community at Work,
11 Evangelize as a Community,
12 Fracture Your Community (for the Community of Heaven),
Conclusion,
General Index,
Scripture Index,
What People are Saying About This
“If you are ready to be refreshed as well as challenged, read this book. It is biblical and practical. Its clarity is powerful and very compelling. Thank you, Mark Dever and Jamie Dunlop, for loving the church of Jesus Christ!”
—Ronnie Floyd, FormerPresident, The Southern Baptist Convention; Senior Pastor, Cross Church, Springdale, Arkansas
“The Compelling Community cannot have come at a better time. Its arguments are compelling. What we need today are not new methods for church growth, but a fresh yielding to the Holy Spirit so that he can take us back to the gospel-centered principles we see in the New Testament that catapulted the early church into the center stage of human history. Thank you, Mark and Jamie, for refreshing our spirits with these timeless truths.”
—Conrad Mbewe, Pastor, Kabwata Baptist Church; Chancellor, African Christian University, Lusaka, Zambia; author,Pastoral Preaching
“The Compelling Community provides an alternative to running your church on the building blocks of specialization and segmentation. The book is well-timed. After all, many of us long to see the gospel build community along the lines of generalization and integration instead. Great stuff from two men who have given their lives to the welfare of the local church.”
—David R. Helm, Pastor, Holy Trinity Church, Chicago; author, The Big Picture Story Bible
“Many of us live in neighborhoods with an abundance of church congregations, yet those neighborhoods are flooded with crime, racism, lostness, and very few changed lives. Have you ever wondered why churches are not having more of an impact? This powerful and convicting book should challenge every church to do a self-examination to determine if their weekly gatherings are making an impact in their community through the power of the gospel!”
—Fred Luter Jr., Pastor, Franklin Avenue Baptist Church, New Orleans, Louisiana
“Mark Dever and Jamie Dunlop remind us that the faithful local church is ever seeking to make a compelling case for Christ in community.”
—Tony Carter, Pastor, East Point Church, East Point, Georgia