Community

In a recent conversation with a nurse at the hospital where we both work, I was telling how my having to work every Sunday interferes with my being able to attend worship. She mentioned that she just needs to step outside in order to spend time with God. Now, the part of Colorado where we live is awesome, and quite easily does evoke an, “Oh my God;” and further, I grew up the son of a wildlife biologist, so I know about coming to be with God in the quiet of the forests, alongside the living waters. But church worship isn’t about our alone time with God. It’s about our coming together as a community to join together in being with God.

To remain outside of such community makes it easier to sink totally into one’s self, to settle and stagnate, to become a singular, not really alive thing. You’re not rubbing up against the notions of others’, particularly the troublesome ones which poke holes in your notions and carry their implications further, or in differing directions, than you intended. Nor are you having oddball ideas thrust at you, which sink in and begin growing—whether weedy growth or possibly beautiful and beneficial things you’ve never seen before. Of course, with a community you have needs, dreams, hopes, desires, hang-ups, and irritating habits other than your own. You cease being the center of the universe, instead, becoming just one more body continually going in circles.

As these things happen, what started this conversation with the nurse was my mentioning it was World Communion Sunday. So, I see a certain properness that our conversation led me to consider the communion aspect of worship which distinguishes it from solitary time alone with God.