Creating Community

As small group leaders, you play an important role in how people experience community at Cornerstone.

There’s a book on my “small group resource” shelf called Creating Community: 5 Keys to Building a Small Group Culture. The promise seems to be that if we can only figure out the right strategies, the right icebreakers, if we can only find the right curriculum and the right people, then we can create this amazing vision called community...

Is that really the case? Can we actually create community? What can we learn about community through the early church?

The gospels actually end showing Jesus’ disciples to be cowardly and weak in their faith and conviction. So how did the early church community get started with these leaders? It happened at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came and empowered these leaders.

I’m reading a book by Scot McKnight called One Life and in it he writes this about community and the Holy Spirit:

The Spirit whispers community wherever the Spirit goes. Where there is community, there is Spirit. Where there is no community, there is no Spirit. The Spirit brings love, justice and peace – for all in the community. In fact, it takes God’s Spirit to create community because we, no matter how hard we try, we are unloving, unjust and unpeaceful. We need the Spirit to live in community... Community emerges because the Spirit is designed to draw us to God and to one another into a fellowship and community.

I was challenged this morning about how little I’ve been trusting the Spirit to lead and guide me. (I can have a tendency to try making things happen with my own strength and knowledge.) I get busy with lots of things to do. I think I know how to do it, but is that really the case?

Only the Spirit can bring about lasting impact, only the Spirit can change your heart, only the Spirit can create community.

Why don’t you take a moment now to pray for a fresh anointing of the Spirit’s enabling power in your life and ministry?