Home: Why Community is Necessary

Anyone who has ever moved to a new place knows that calling somewhere “home” is significant. As a young person who immigrated to New York City from China, I was an urban nomad, and each new neighborhood I lived in—almost always as a minority—shaped my identity.

Moving was part of the narrative of my immigrant family, and a continual reshaping of my identity marked my childhood as I interacted with new and distinct neighborhoods. I experienced the tension of trying to assimilate into those around me when I was outside of my home, only to revert to my Chinese culture at home with my family. Home was always an emotional shifting of gears for me.

Home: Humanity’s Most Visceral Ache

We are all searching for a home; we are all homesick. As Frederick Buechner wrote, “Home represents humanity’s most visceral ache — and our oldest desire.” Each of us is longing for something more, something permanent, something better. We are longing for a sense of place—for a home.

In Genesis, the very beginning of God’s story, one of the first things God provides for Adam and Eve is a home in the Garden of Eden. But because they distrust God’s provision and promise, we experience the Fall—and from that point on, the rest of the narrative is one of a people searching for a home. The people of God are taken from one home into exile, into the wilderness, back to a promised land, and then back into exile. Even the (arguably) most famous parable of the prodigal son is about home. The younger son takes leave, and the father bids him to come home. This deep, spiritual yearning for home is evident throughout scripture.

Since Eden, we’ve never really been home.

In Keeping Place: Reflections on the Meaning of Home, Jen Pollock Michele writes: “It is often supposed that despair is more intellectually credible than hope. According to the unbeliever, the Garden of Eden is just one more example of our great naiveté—the stuff of fairy tales…In other words, fairy tales tell not just good news but true news: death has no final word, evil is vanquished, and justice reigns. This world of make-believe is, in fact, the world we all want.”

God has imprinted on our hearts a yearning for a home where love triumphs. Where good overcome the brokenness around us, we yearn for a community that we can go and to tend to, people to love, and space to feast and share some of our deepest longings. He’s given us a yearning for a place to be ourselves, free from all the world outside of the demands of our homes. 

No matter how extravagant of an escape you plan away for a vacation, after a period of time, we all long for a return to home. That anchor of a place that only our home uniquely offers. A place where we have community. 

We all are tangibly seeking the very thing we all (including God’s people throughout the ages) yearn for in the depths of our spirits: home. This shared ache should move us to either invite others into a space of welcome or we should enter into those spaces that are there for God to transform us because Christ has called us as a people into a community.

For so many in our church, we are spiritually without a community or a home. We live as if we are saved individually, not as a community. 

A central theme which runs throughout the Bible is that God is creating a people who belong to him. Whether in the Old Covenant or the New, the work of God is the calling of a people. He is not merely saving individuals; He is building a new community in which he is the central participant. He is forming a new society out of the ashes of a fallen and rebellious human race. The development of a community lies at the heart of God’s covenant promise “I will be your God and you will be my people.” The church must take the call to be a new community with the utmost seriousness. God gets this across in a number of ways. —Tim Keller

One of the significant moments in the ushering of the ministry of Jesus on earth was his call to his disciples. Jesus welcomed them. He builds community and life together with them. Similarly, when we came to faith, Jesus welcomed us not only in that moment of conversion, but he continued to welcome us as a community. In a community defined by sharing life, to build the most meaningful relationship and friendships in our lives. Not through text messages, emails, or phone calls. But to be intentional and share life. 

We are gathering together and tethering ourselves to the community that God is forming in and through us. That is why the early church met together throughout the week to share life together through prayer, fellowship, study, and missions.  

The practice of hospitality defined the early church because it reflected the welcome of Christ. It was in the gatherings and reflected in the liturgy of worship of the welcoming of people who were identified as outsiders to become insiders and family. It is a household defined by the care they are experiencing together. 

The best testimony to the truth of the gospel is the quality of our life together. Jesus risked his reputation and the credibility of his story by tying them to how his followers live and care for one another in community (John 17:20-23). —Christine Pohl

So as we start a new season of Community Groups gathering together, ask yourself, who do you belong to? What community do you regularly spend time with in proximity? Who do you share life with? As you think of the relationships you have at church, do you feel like this? I am not making a difference in anyone’s life, and no one is making a difference in my life. 

Perhaps some of us need to pause and pray about what God is inviting us to be part of. Not as an individual person and not even as an individual family but rather as a community together walking to reflect this home that becomes a household of faith where we are growing together, seeing God in our midst through our time of fellowship together. 

I think the most transformative stories you hear about what God is doing are through these weekly gatherings. I have personally seen conversions happen where participants were not only struck by the Gospel being taught but how the Gospel was being displayed through the gatherings. I have also been part of groups where people experienced answered prayers that seemed impossible and also held onto each other in moments of despair. Also, I want to be honest and share a word of reality and caution. It is not a perfect community of perfected saints but fellow believers seeking to stagger towards Christ through speaking and living grace and truth into each other's lives. As Abigail Van Buren said, “The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.” It is sometimes messy, and we will probably get disappointed, hurt, and offended, but there are resources in the community for reconciliation and restoration It will most likely not be a community that will fulfill all our hopes, but it will be a place where we can point to the what our heart deeply yearns for— homecoming.

But, we too, can have ultimate hope that one day, God will also fulfill our deepest longings for home. Until then, Christ has given us the church to live and long together.