Saturday, May 07, 2005

Biblical Community

Right now, I'm involved in a Doctor of Ministry Course from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and I have to write a 15-20 page paper for Bill Donahue of the Willow Creek Association that will transition our small group ministry for greater health and effectiveness over the next 18 months to 3 years (I could use prayer for this! It's due June 10th).

It's been a good exercise for me. One of the pre-course assignments was to develop a robust description/definition of biblical community. Here's my best shot to date:

Biblical community is a sanctifying foretaste of heaven, experienced in the smallest of groups and in large gatherings, when followers of Jesus Christ share together the most important things in life in such a way that the diverse but unified body of Christ is built up, cared for, and brought to maturity so that their oneness with each other somehow reflects and shares in the oneness of the Trinity.

1 comments:

I like it!
I think church life needs to be defined as the "eschatological community" living in the TODAY what we will one day experience in full in ETERNITY.