If community is neither just a place to practice spiritual disciplines or gifts, nor is it the fellowship that is practiced by the larger Body of Christ, what then is community? I think the best illustration of true community happened in the Upper Room. The night before Jesus begins his great suffering he pulls together his closest friends (and I do believe that in this moment of anguish it was His friends that He desired to be with more than his disciples) to reveal to them the essence of who He had alluded to so many times. Christ initiates the New Covenant in the midst of true community. Luke 22 details the story, but I want to look specifically at verses 13-16,
13They left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover. 14When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. 15And he said to them, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God."
In another conversation Christ has with His Disciples He made a point of changing the relationship from one of religion to one of intimacy when he states, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:15) According to Thayer’s Lexicon a friend (philo), as it is used here, means joined with as in a bridegroom’s closest companions.
Within this passage there are a few elements of community that can be identified. These elements of community should empower the Church to embrace similar forms of community that strengthen the Church and bring honor to Christ. The elements of community that I identify here are not the elements of the Body of Christ nor are they elements of the greater fellowship of believers. There is no doubt that many of those elements should be expressed within community, but community has these additional elements that make it unique to the Christian experience.
1. Community is comfortable- We are introduced to the last supper event within this passage with Jesus and the twelve reclining at the table. I have often wondered about the everyday experiences of Jesus and the disciples. Even when scripture does give a glimpse of Jesus and the disciples when they are apart from the crowds the stories are about great teaching that Jesus gives to the disciples. There isn’t much at all about the time that Jesus and the disciples spend relaxing, sitting around the camp fire laughing, the inside jokes that emerge, or tears that are shed as Jesus brings healing and ministry to the group. Church is so goal driven in modern Christianity: global missions fund raisers, church growth, outreach and evangelism initiatives, and committee meetings. Community should begin with relationships. Reclining at the table sharing our stories, encouraging one another, and laughing and crying together. It requires the intention act of getting to know each other. There is no guarantee that community will emerge simply by spending time together, but no community will develop without it.
2. Community prepares us for the suffering to come- As Jesus prepares for the greatest trial of His life He states that He eagerly desires to spend time with His community. From there Jesus and the disciples were called upon to practice various forms of ministry, but it was essential that they prepared for it after they experienced community. How could Jesus simply sit around a table serving His disciples knowing what was about to happen? How could Jesus even eat? I believe that Jesus found strength, not only in His Father during this time, but through His community. Jesus deliberately chose the surround Himself with His closest friends before His trial began. Jesus later expresses his frustration in the Garden after the disciples wouldn’t stay up to pray with Him. Being in community is what will prepare us all for the trials in this life to come better than anything else. Community is now, as it was then, a time for those who are preparing for the suffering of Holy living to come together in raw intimacy to seek encouragement, support, guidance, and strength. God designed us to need others to strengthen us, to sharpen us, and to encourage us. Without community, the zealous disciple relies on His own strength, discipline, and encouragement and he ultimately either becomes isolated or fails. There is al ot of literature out there even beyond the church showing the value of community. Ecological Perspective illustrates how people shape the same societies that they shape. Evolutionary psychology illustrates the core elements of humanity that persist including communal identity. And the list goes on.
3. A personal revelation of Christ- The disciples were often sent out from the inner group to do great acts of ministry, but it appears that in those times when Christ pulled the group together it was very much about Christ serving them. These times appear to often be filled with great teachings and revelation. Christ reserved the deepest of His teachings for those who He had the most trust in their ability to understand and accept. During the Upper Room Passover meal Christ revealed His nature in way that He never had before by explaining the events that were about to come and their meaning. In addition, Jesus served the disciples during this incredibly intense dinner, but there is no indication that the disciples were expected to serve Jesus or each other. I am not suggesting that community isn’t about serving, in fact, just the opposite. Community is still a time when those who have a shared trust and intimacy come together to experience the revelation of Christ, but now members in the community act on Christ’s behalf. Trust is even more important and intimacy is even more critical because now the recipients of the revelation and ministry of Christ are also the vessels for revelation and ministry.
4. An expression of an eternal relationship- Community gives us an opportunity to practice what we will experience in heaven. In this way, simply meeting together with those you trust and with whom you have a shared journey is one of the purest forms of sacrament possible. It is a visible and ongoing symbol of the grace and mercy of the Father. It is the realization of what we will share with Christ throughout eternity. From early Greek philosophy, which has directly shaped much of modern theology, we have come to believe that the distinction between the forms of heaven and earth are noticeably different, but eternally linked. This world is but, as C.S. Lewis teaches us, a shadow of a much greater reality.
Spiritual disciplines, spiritual gifts, and ministry will naturally emerge, but none of these defines community nor is required for community to exist. Intimacy is central and, by its nature, organic, complex, messy, and difficult to predict. It takes time to develop, and is unique for each community. Community requires an investment by those within the community to each other based on trust. But above all else, community is the revelation of Christ through the individual experiences within the group. Is community the most important aspect of the Christian life? Is it more important than evangelism or promoting justice? Is intimacy the single ingredient missing from the Church today? No to all of these. Community is one element of the Kingdom that has a very unique and significant purpose. But it is the foundation of Christ’s ministry and the essence of the earliest Christian church. From there we will be called to great ministry. And from time to time we will be on our own as well with little support from a community. But participation in a community, not membership in a church or bible study or Sunday school class, but a community is our strongest link to support, encouragement, and conviction. It will prepare us for life and ministry better than anything else. And it will be our best glimpse into the future we have beyond this life.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
THE ELEMENTS OF COMMUNITY- Part 1
“At the core of our being is the tormenting need to know and be known, to understand and be understood, to possess and be possessed, to belong unconditionally and forever without fear of loss, betrayal or rejection.” (Gilbert Bilzekian)
It is important for me to note that this blog was first written about a year ago. I wrote it as an article to submit to a magazine. It wasn’t accepted. I am positive that it wasn’t accepted because of the quality of the article, but I also have wondered what other factors may have played into its rejection. As you may have noticed by now, my opinions and ideas about my faith and the institutions surrounding them are more an expression of frustration than a claim of truth. Despite that, I still felt pretty confident in its content. However, as I now go through it for revisions to submit to my blog I have come to feel even more confused about community than I did when I first became frustrated with the current state of community in the Body of Christ. For example, the community I was involved in at the time of the first writing of this article has since all but ended. That is assuming that we ever were truly a community. So, as you read my great insight into what community should look like keep in mind that I obviously have no idea what I am talking about.
John Wesley’s model for the church was largely dependent on increasing levels of intentional community. Whether it be the classes that developed out of the larger Society or the Bands that grew out of the classes, intimacy exhibited within community was critical to Wesley. Future models developed within the church such as Sunday school and eventually home groups, cell groups, and accountability groups, but despite the idealism proposed by leaders within the church and the obvious benefits of promoting smaller, more intimate group settings, the institutional and capitalistic influence within the predominant church paradigm makes it extremely difficult for true community to emerge.
There are potentially many factors that contribute to the lack of community within the church despite the church’s best efforts to develop it: political agendas, program saturation, external cultural forces, and more. However, the fundamental breakdown of community and the shallow form of fellowship that took its place is also to blame. The fellowship-oriented programs of the modern church are valid and have the potential to lead toward true community, but the intimacy required for community to emerge cannot be manufactured within an experience that promotes the program that surrounds the experience. In other words, community is often lost in the attempt to develop community. The intimacy that is required for true community to exist is difficult to develop. Churches create opportunities for community but often focus, rather, on goals such as church growth and developing social networks. More focused attempts for community are often attempted by those in the church through support groups, accountability partners, and other mechanisms, but the church-growth emphasis often negates the potential for intimacy. This is not to say that community never occurs in the modern church. In fact, I believe it often does. I experienced community in my youth group growing up, a bible study that I attended in college, through a peer support group for young ministers when I was in my early twenties, and recently I became involved in a men’s’ group that is made up largely of men from a certain church. I am not so jaded I would be critical of every attempt that those within the church have ever made at community, but that the influences of the institution, the historical misunderstanding regarding what community means, and the external pressures of society make the development of community within the institutional paradigm so difficult to develop that more often than not the results of community (in the rare cases it actually happens) occurs despite the church rather than because of the church.
According to Thayer’s Lexicon, “fellowship” (koinōnia) in Acts 2:42 means the intimacy that bonds all Christians. There is no doubt that there is a form of intimacy that bonds all within the Body of Christ to each other and to Christ, but the word refers specifically to the entire Body of Christ. This is practiced through worship, service, and even community. But fellowship and community are not necessarily equivalent ideals. “Community” is typically coupled with “fellowship” when defining close relationships. Community, as I address it here however, is the most intimate form of fellowship; the type of fellowship that occurs only within small groups of individuals who are able to invest in each other’s lives. The modern use of “fellowship” within the institutional paradigm requires a differentiation from “community” due to the superficial use of the “fellowship” which typically meets the institutional goal of general gatherings. I am introducing “community” as an alternative that reflects the raw intimacy that can only be experienced in a healthy way within a small group sharing a spiritual journey.
So then what is community? It seems that typically the first scriptural reference for answering this question is with the formation of the first post-Pentecostal community. The Body of Christ, or the Church, was born with the giving of the Spirit of God. Acts 2 gives an account,
42They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
As I read this account I am moved at the devotion and sincerity of the first Church, but I do not see a definitive depiction of community. Rather, I see a description of how the Body of Christ should function from a more holistic perspective. Community, however, is one part of how the Church should function, but it is not the same thing as Christian living. Even when referring to fellowship in verse 42 it is obviously in the context of the larger Body of Christ. The description given in Acts 2 is powerful and convicting, but not a definitive answer to the question, “what is community?”
In fact, verse 46 is the only verse pulled from this passage that does refer to community, yet the modern use of the entire passage is used to explain what is understood as community. Therefore, to use the remainder of the passage to reflect the nature of community may be misleading. Beginning in verse 42 we see the first element of the Church that is not necessarily an element of community. It reads, “They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” These acts described in verse 42 refer to spiritual disciplines. Spiritual disciplines are an amazing means of grace and incredibly powerful in our spiritual development, but community is a discipline in and of itself. It is not only a place to simply practice the disciplines. In verse 43 we see something else that is amazing, but not necessarily a part of community, “Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.” When we begin to equate community with a place where we practice our spiritual gifts then we perpetuate the need to prove our worth to the group as a prerequisite for participation. It in fact develops a mentality that value within the group is directly related to what can be contributed by each member. It no longer is about what God is in each person, but what God can do through each person. Finally we see in verses 44 and 45 another amazing element of the Body of Christ, “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.” Social activism, service, and self-sacrifice are what, in many ways, sets Christianity apart from all other religions. But what is preeminent in the Christian life is intimacy with Christ. Acts of service will naturally develop out of community, but they are not the goal of community. There is no doubt that within community spiritual gifts and spiritual disciplines are going to emerge, but it is critical that true community values each person for who Christ is in each person without any other expectations or contributions.
It is important for me to note that this blog was first written about a year ago. I wrote it as an article to submit to a magazine. It wasn’t accepted. I am positive that it wasn’t accepted because of the quality of the article, but I also have wondered what other factors may have played into its rejection. As you may have noticed by now, my opinions and ideas about my faith and the institutions surrounding them are more an expression of frustration than a claim of truth. Despite that, I still felt pretty confident in its content. However, as I now go through it for revisions to submit to my blog I have come to feel even more confused about community than I did when I first became frustrated with the current state of community in the Body of Christ. For example, the community I was involved in at the time of the first writing of this article has since all but ended. That is assuming that we ever were truly a community. So, as you read my great insight into what community should look like keep in mind that I obviously have no idea what I am talking about.
John Wesley’s model for the church was largely dependent on increasing levels of intentional community. Whether it be the classes that developed out of the larger Society or the Bands that grew out of the classes, intimacy exhibited within community was critical to Wesley. Future models developed within the church such as Sunday school and eventually home groups, cell groups, and accountability groups, but despite the idealism proposed by leaders within the church and the obvious benefits of promoting smaller, more intimate group settings, the institutional and capitalistic influence within the predominant church paradigm makes it extremely difficult for true community to emerge.
There are potentially many factors that contribute to the lack of community within the church despite the church’s best efforts to develop it: political agendas, program saturation, external cultural forces, and more. However, the fundamental breakdown of community and the shallow form of fellowship that took its place is also to blame. The fellowship-oriented programs of the modern church are valid and have the potential to lead toward true community, but the intimacy required for community to emerge cannot be manufactured within an experience that promotes the program that surrounds the experience. In other words, community is often lost in the attempt to develop community. The intimacy that is required for true community to exist is difficult to develop. Churches create opportunities for community but often focus, rather, on goals such as church growth and developing social networks. More focused attempts for community are often attempted by those in the church through support groups, accountability partners, and other mechanisms, but the church-growth emphasis often negates the potential for intimacy. This is not to say that community never occurs in the modern church. In fact, I believe it often does. I experienced community in my youth group growing up, a bible study that I attended in college, through a peer support group for young ministers when I was in my early twenties, and recently I became involved in a men’s’ group that is made up largely of men from a certain church. I am not so jaded I would be critical of every attempt that those within the church have ever made at community, but that the influences of the institution, the historical misunderstanding regarding what community means, and the external pressures of society make the development of community within the institutional paradigm so difficult to develop that more often than not the results of community (in the rare cases it actually happens) occurs despite the church rather than because of the church.
According to Thayer’s Lexicon, “fellowship” (koinōnia) in Acts 2:42 means the intimacy that bonds all Christians. There is no doubt that there is a form of intimacy that bonds all within the Body of Christ to each other and to Christ, but the word refers specifically to the entire Body of Christ. This is practiced through worship, service, and even community. But fellowship and community are not necessarily equivalent ideals. “Community” is typically coupled with “fellowship” when defining close relationships. Community, as I address it here however, is the most intimate form of fellowship; the type of fellowship that occurs only within small groups of individuals who are able to invest in each other’s lives. The modern use of “fellowship” within the institutional paradigm requires a differentiation from “community” due to the superficial use of the “fellowship” which typically meets the institutional goal of general gatherings. I am introducing “community” as an alternative that reflects the raw intimacy that can only be experienced in a healthy way within a small group sharing a spiritual journey.
So then what is community? It seems that typically the first scriptural reference for answering this question is with the formation of the first post-Pentecostal community. The Body of Christ, or the Church, was born with the giving of the Spirit of God. Acts 2 gives an account,
42They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
As I read this account I am moved at the devotion and sincerity of the first Church, but I do not see a definitive depiction of community. Rather, I see a description of how the Body of Christ should function from a more holistic perspective. Community, however, is one part of how the Church should function, but it is not the same thing as Christian living. Even when referring to fellowship in verse 42 it is obviously in the context of the larger Body of Christ. The description given in Acts 2 is powerful and convicting, but not a definitive answer to the question, “what is community?”
In fact, verse 46 is the only verse pulled from this passage that does refer to community, yet the modern use of the entire passage is used to explain what is understood as community. Therefore, to use the remainder of the passage to reflect the nature of community may be misleading. Beginning in verse 42 we see the first element of the Church that is not necessarily an element of community. It reads, “They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” These acts described in verse 42 refer to spiritual disciplines. Spiritual disciplines are an amazing means of grace and incredibly powerful in our spiritual development, but community is a discipline in and of itself. It is not only a place to simply practice the disciplines. In verse 43 we see something else that is amazing, but not necessarily a part of community, “Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.” When we begin to equate community with a place where we practice our spiritual gifts then we perpetuate the need to prove our worth to the group as a prerequisite for participation. It in fact develops a mentality that value within the group is directly related to what can be contributed by each member. It no longer is about what God is in each person, but what God can do through each person. Finally we see in verses 44 and 45 another amazing element of the Body of Christ, “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.” Social activism, service, and self-sacrifice are what, in many ways, sets Christianity apart from all other religions. But what is preeminent in the Christian life is intimacy with Christ. Acts of service will naturally develop out of community, but they are not the goal of community. There is no doubt that within community spiritual gifts and spiritual disciplines are going to emerge, but it is critical that true community values each person for who Christ is in each person without any other expectations or contributions.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
300.12 Or Just 296.90
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)
I am going to break from what has developed as my typical blogging format and share something that is very much related to how I am currently dealing with my recovery in Christianity. Next month I turn 36 years old. I am not so concerned that I am “getting old”, but I am aware of certain frustrations with where I am. First let me point out places where I find much joy with where my life is. I am married to an awesome woman who somehow finds the energy to laugh at my jokes, support me through my existential dilemmas, and be an amazing best friend. I have two boys that are my world. I am surrounded by friends and family who love me. And (to be trite) I have good health and a roof over my head. However, as I prepare to enter the second half of my thirties I am disturbed that my life has yet to take off the way I wished it had. I get that life usually doesn’t turn out the way we wish, but at 35 years old I still struggle daily with identifying what my ministry is, my own spiritual journey, and my identity. Over the past year I have settled in a career that I would have ever wished for that (while I am honestly pretty good at) brings me very little personal satisfaction, gone through what has been a very difficult developmental stage of marriage, been hit headlong with financial struggles, pushed my dissertation back a semester, and made the painful decision to put my oldest child on behavior altering medication. As I went through those exhausting six months I realize now that I was in crisis-mode. Now, as life settles some, I am attempting to process what that all meant. As I begin to sort out the meaning of it all I can’t help but feel that God is attempting to do something in me or perhaps reveal something to me, but that I am simply unable to make since of that as well.
Over the weekend I was driving home from a little side job I picked up to help with expenses. It was a rainy morning and I was listening to some pretty sappy and depressing 70’s Top Forty music. I was hit with this feeling of overwhelming discouragement. I am not sure this is going to make much sense to anyone who is not as screwed up as I am, but I felt like a piece of my identity was missing. At the time I identified it as I was attempting to live completely normal life but was missing an arm. Obviously there are people who are missing an arm and do quite well, but there is no mistaking the fact that they don’t have that arm. That is how I felt. I was getting through life just fine without that part of my identity but there was no denying that it was gone. This took me to reflect on a verse that I had been meditating on all week, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” Over the past week I had been meditating on how frustrating that verse is to me. If I desire to rid myself of thoughts, behaviors, and aspects of my life I need to replace them with something else or they will return (exponentially as the parable of sweeping the house would illustrate). But if you rid yourself of sin (sin being anything that separates me from God) before the Spirit can replace it then you are left with a void in your identity. If you try to feel yourself with the Spirit without repentance then you live with opposing identities. I realized on that drive home that this is how I feel. I am either suffering from a depressed state of lose of identity from ridding myself of a part of my identity (as in the DSM diagnosis 296.90) or I am suffering from competing identities (as in the DSM diagnosis 300.12).
As I struggle through my recovery of Christianity (and by the way, I would like to remind you that when I say Christianity I am referring to the cultural form of Christianity that I believe is neither biblical nor healthy) I am having to engage with some pretty hard truths regarding areas of my life that I have been able to mask with principles, doctrines, forms of righteousness. But one of those areas that is most difficult for me to engage in is identifying how and what must die in me. I am a firm believer that no one does anything for any single reason. There are multiple voices that play (consciously or subconsciously) in our heads when we do anything. Righteousness without holiness, while having value, is more about serving a part of our identity that needs to die. Holiness does produce righteousness, but it is easy to be righteous without holiness. It is easy in the modern church to confuse the two ideals, but the truth is that holiness is often more about obedience rooted in relationship with God than righteousness rooted in ethics.
So as I conclude this glimpse into the psyche of a Recovering Christian I ask one thing: if you figure out how to become this new creation we have all already been identified as in our justified state please let me in on the secret. Otherwise, find comfort in the fact that sanctification is a messy and complicated process of self-discovery that can only be worked out in true community.
I am going to break from what has developed as my typical blogging format and share something that is very much related to how I am currently dealing with my recovery in Christianity. Next month I turn 36 years old. I am not so concerned that I am “getting old”, but I am aware of certain frustrations with where I am. First let me point out places where I find much joy with where my life is. I am married to an awesome woman who somehow finds the energy to laugh at my jokes, support me through my existential dilemmas, and be an amazing best friend. I have two boys that are my world. I am surrounded by friends and family who love me. And (to be trite) I have good health and a roof over my head. However, as I prepare to enter the second half of my thirties I am disturbed that my life has yet to take off the way I wished it had. I get that life usually doesn’t turn out the way we wish, but at 35 years old I still struggle daily with identifying what my ministry is, my own spiritual journey, and my identity. Over the past year I have settled in a career that I would have ever wished for that (while I am honestly pretty good at) brings me very little personal satisfaction, gone through what has been a very difficult developmental stage of marriage, been hit headlong with financial struggles, pushed my dissertation back a semester, and made the painful decision to put my oldest child on behavior altering medication. As I went through those exhausting six months I realize now that I was in crisis-mode. Now, as life settles some, I am attempting to process what that all meant. As I begin to sort out the meaning of it all I can’t help but feel that God is attempting to do something in me or perhaps reveal something to me, but that I am simply unable to make since of that as well.
Over the weekend I was driving home from a little side job I picked up to help with expenses. It was a rainy morning and I was listening to some pretty sappy and depressing 70’s Top Forty music. I was hit with this feeling of overwhelming discouragement. I am not sure this is going to make much sense to anyone who is not as screwed up as I am, but I felt like a piece of my identity was missing. At the time I identified it as I was attempting to live completely normal life but was missing an arm. Obviously there are people who are missing an arm and do quite well, but there is no mistaking the fact that they don’t have that arm. That is how I felt. I was getting through life just fine without that part of my identity but there was no denying that it was gone. This took me to reflect on a verse that I had been meditating on all week, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” Over the past week I had been meditating on how frustrating that verse is to me. If I desire to rid myself of thoughts, behaviors, and aspects of my life I need to replace them with something else or they will return (exponentially as the parable of sweeping the house would illustrate). But if you rid yourself of sin (sin being anything that separates me from God) before the Spirit can replace it then you are left with a void in your identity. If you try to feel yourself with the Spirit without repentance then you live with opposing identities. I realized on that drive home that this is how I feel. I am either suffering from a depressed state of lose of identity from ridding myself of a part of my identity (as in the DSM diagnosis 296.90) or I am suffering from competing identities (as in the DSM diagnosis 300.12).
As I struggle through my recovery of Christianity (and by the way, I would like to remind you that when I say Christianity I am referring to the cultural form of Christianity that I believe is neither biblical nor healthy) I am having to engage with some pretty hard truths regarding areas of my life that I have been able to mask with principles, doctrines, forms of righteousness. But one of those areas that is most difficult for me to engage in is identifying how and what must die in me. I am a firm believer that no one does anything for any single reason. There are multiple voices that play (consciously or subconsciously) in our heads when we do anything. Righteousness without holiness, while having value, is more about serving a part of our identity that needs to die. Holiness does produce righteousness, but it is easy to be righteous without holiness. It is easy in the modern church to confuse the two ideals, but the truth is that holiness is often more about obedience rooted in relationship with God than righteousness rooted in ethics.
So as I conclude this glimpse into the psyche of a Recovering Christian I ask one thing: if you figure out how to become this new creation we have all already been identified as in our justified state please let me in on the secret. Otherwise, find comfort in the fact that sanctification is a messy and complicated process of self-discovery that can only be worked out in true community.
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