I recently had the need to “run away.” I had a lot on my plate and also had some things that were weighing heavily on my heart. The busyness of day-to-day life compounded things, until I found myself completely overwhelmed.
We couldn’t afford for me to go stay at a hotel to get away for a few days. As I asked God to show me how to get some time away, which I so desperately needed, I realized my mom was heading to Ohio to visit my sister, leaving her place unoccupied for a week. So I packed my things and went to stay there for several days of quietness, prayer, reading, writing, reflection…you get the idea.
Every morning, I would go out for a long walk around the mobile home subdivision she lives in. The last morning as I was walking, someone drove past me with a huge smile and a big wave, and I smiled and waved back. My thought was, “You have no clue who I am, so why are you so excited to see me?”
I realized it was because the driver probably believed that if I was out walking in this subdivision, I lived there. She had the unconscious thought, “You must be one of us, you are part of our community” and therefore offered the joyful greeting from her car.
I had a Mini Cooper for five years. (Yes, sweet!) I loved that car! As 
the owner of a Mini, whenever you pass someone else driving a Mini, you wave at them. It’s a big deal to be the owner of such a car, and a community is built around it. Dave and I did several Mini Cooper rallies, where we would meet up with dozens or even hundreds of other Mini owners, and all drive somewhere together. At one of these rallies we even got to drive on the Indy 500 track!
It’s the same thing with Harley Davidson. One of my sons is a Harley technician, and in the summer once a month they have a rally, where hundreds of Harley owners come from all around to hang out together. If you own a 
Harley, you are automatically part of their community.
I looked up the word community, and here is one of the definitions: a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals (Oxford Dictionaries).
Community gives us a sense of belonging. We all have a need, a craving, to know we belong somewhere.
The Body of Christ should be our greatest sense of community. It should be a place where we feel in fellowship with others, as a result of the commonality of our relationship and love for Jesus.
But do we? Unfortunately, many people do not. They have the commonality, but not the fellowship of community.
Why is that? Could it be that we have unwittingly reverted back to the way of the Pharisees that Jesus called hypocrites? Are we so busy being the Holy Spirit to those around us who profess Jesus as their Savior, making sure they do and don’t do what He has convicted us of, that it is a bunch of rules and regulations, instead of relationship?
The other day, I was talking to someone in my parents’ generation who began to share with me her frustration at the lack of young people in her church. I told her that I think it is because we have tried to teach our kids about the rules of religion, instead of the gift of relationship. Rules without relationship breeds rebellion.
When someone first comes to know Jesus in a real way, telling God they want to live for Him instead of themselves and inviting Him into their lives, we are all happy and excited for them (as we should be)! But then we immediately start telling them what they should and should not do, to be able to remain as part of our church community, under the label of being a Christian. If they don’t follow our rules fast enough, they start feeling uncomfortable, and end up leaving.
I am not talking about things in the Bible God outright calls sin and wants us to come away from to avoid our own destruction. I am talking about things like not wearing flip-flops to church. Yes, I actually had a conversation with someone on this very subject. Her argument was that a person would not wear something as casual as flip-flops to visit a dignitary, and since God is so much greater, He should be honored in the same way. Therefore, we need to dress up (which includes no flip-flops) for church.
Things like abstaining from all alcohol (which my husband and I do, not because we think it is a sin, but it is just our personal choice) or getting certain body piercings or a tattoo are other common areas of “how can you call yourself a Christian and do that?” type of subjects. We even had a friend many years ago who had this attitude about home schooling, laying a guilt trip on any Christian who sent their children to government (public) schools!
Here’s a thought. How about if we focus on relationships instead of rules? Yes, I know there is a need for accountability, teaching, instruction, and correction. But the black-and-white (and red lettering) Word of God is the measuring stick for that. Our own convictions in areas that do not make or break a person’s relationship with God should not become unwritten rules of the community of the Body of Christ, causing broken fellowship and division.
Many years ago, my husband and I were members of our local curling club (a sport played on ice). I felt like I had better fellowship and sense of community and belonging there in the clubhouse (drinking my soda) than I did in my church at times. I was accepted and welcomed just the way I was. No one was trying to conform me into their own image of who they thought I should be as a curler, like I felt was happening to me in the church as a Christian. How sad is that? Fortunately, I was strong enough to recognize how dangerous the pull of that was, so it did not cause me to give up on being part of the Church.
But many people don’t have that insight, and decide that the acceptance of community in the world is so much better than the acceptance of community (or lack of it) in the church. That is not what Christ intended, and I am sure it grieves Him greatly.
Everyone needs to belong to a group who will accept them the way they are. I cannot change a person’s heart. I cannot change a person’s motive. I cannot change a person’s convictions. Only the Holy Spirit can do that, and He does it quite well. As a matter of fact, that is His specialty.
What I can do is love someone into the Kingdom, and then continue to love them the way they are, while the Holy Spirit does the internal work. It does no good to get someone to conform on the outside, with no change on the inside.
People should not have to go outside the church and into the world to have that craving of belonging to a community to be filled. Let’s be determined to make sure our churches are a true place of community, where people know they are wanted and belong, for the simple fact that we are all “living in the same subdivision”. We are all in relationship with God through the covenant blood of Jesus Christ. That is what makes us part of His community; plain and simple.
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