Over the years, my husband and I have moved from place to place, needing to rebuild community each time. I found some of those moves marked by flawless transition and easy friendships—but others have been more trying. Just when I thought a new season couldn’t shake me, it would. I’d find myself longing for community and wondering why the Christian faith felt so lonely.
Many of us relate to this loneliness, although probably not for all of the same reasons. In 1975, 68 percent of Americans had confidence in the church. More recently, however, only 32 percent of Christians have “a great deal or fair amount of confidence” in the church.1 For many, the church is no longer a place of refuge that offers life to weary faith. This might leave us wondering, “Where do I go when my walk with God feels lonely?”
Scripture clearly reminds us that we weren’t meant to walk with God all on our own. The Christian life was never meant to be a solitary “just God and me” experience. Scripture consistently points toward the importance of community if we read with this perspective in mind.
Made for Community
In Genesis 2, we receive crystal clear insight into the making of male and female and how both were necessary to God’s good design. When God observes his creation of man, he acknowledges something is missing—“It is not good that the man should be alone”—and immediately begins to correct it—“I will make a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18). In a moment of dramatic tension, our God brought every single animal he’d created and set them before Adam, who named them all. Yet no animal is able to fill Adam’s need for a partner (Genesis 2:19). As Adam slumbers, God forms Eve from his body, and while this passage draws out marriage specifically, it draws out community generally. Adam’s story of creation shows us that, from the beginning, we were made for community.
Too often, we think about community in a way that serves our needs and interests. We connect easily with the conversationalist in Economics class but avoid the woman from church who seems so unlike us. We gravitate toward those with sunny dispositions yet avoid those with weekly prayer requests in our Bible studies. We are drawn to people in similar seasons of life, with similar backgrounds and interests, and within similar circles. Too often, we make community about ourselves.
The beginning chapters of Genesis remind us not only that we’re made for community but also why we’re made for it. When God blessed the first couple, he said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28). Adam could not accomplish all that God intended for him to do on his own. He needed a partner who could help him bear the load. Together, the first couple worshiped God with their shared work, reflecting him in ways the rest of creation was unable.
Do you see the theme of community in our first parents’ creation? Our desire for community is not a misplaced longing or a result of the fall—it’s how we as humans were designed. Within our DNA is the need for community—the desire to live alongside others and fulfill what God has called us to.
Saved Into Community
When Jesus came, he revealed the greater implications of community. As Edmund Clowney reminds us, “The good news of Christ’s coming includes the good news of what he came to do: to join us to himself and to one another as his body, the new people of God.”2 We often think of our Christian lives as solitary relationships, just between “God and me.” Yet Scripture reminds us again and again that our unity with Christ means unity with his body (1 Corinthians 12:12–14). We were saved into a community of believers—and what a special gift this is to us.
In one of the most famous chapters in the New Testament, the writer of Hebrews walks us through the Hall of Faith: men and women throughout the Old Testament who lived by faith alone. They were not sinless by any means, but they were partners in the faith—those who endured in the Christian life that we too might endure (Hebrews 11).
Hebrews 12:1–2 explains the importance of this Hall of Faith: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.” It’s as if the writer of Hebrews is asking us, “Do you see those men and women who clung to their faith even in their darkest moments? Do you see the ones who obeyed the Lord and followed him until their dying breath? Let their example encourage you to keep going. Don’t give up!”
We see these types of Christians in our own lives, don’t we? Men and women who have endured and stayed faith-filled. The man who lost his wife to cancer yet clings to God’s faithfulness in life and testimony. The woman who experienced church hurt yet comes to this new church every Sunday, lifting her arms in worship in the front row. The couple with a young baby who still wake early to read God’s Word and pray with each other. The older man who shares the gospel daily in his favorite coffee shop. The friend who recently lost her job yet relentlessly pursues God’s desires for her life. All of these Christians, imperfectly walking forward in faith, placed in our lives to encourage us to keep going.
Lacking Christian Community
In college, I set off on a quest to find a church that I could call my own. I’d grown up in the church and thought it was important. I attended weekly with my parents and served often. Yet there was still a disconnect. I couldn’t identify it at the time, but my view of the church was much higher than what I was willing to actually give. I thought Christian community was important, but did I prioritize Sunday mornings, church membership, and intentional Christian fellowship? I’m not sure that I did.
Maybe you struggle with this same lack of prioritization. You feel that the church is important but don’t live like it. Or maybe you’d like to feel more involved but are unsure where to start.
First, I’d encourage you to pray. Ask God to show you the importance of his body of believers. Ask him to revive a love for his church within your heart. Ask him to help you find a God-honoring church if you don’t belong to one. Scripture reminds us that “if we ask anything according to [God’s] will he hears us (1 John 5:14b). He’s no stranger to the importance of the church in our lives. Go to him with your need.
And if you’re in a healthy church that lifts up the importance of God and his Word, consider talking with a trusted pastor. Share your thoughts and what growth you’d like to see in your own life. Ask him how you might become more involved or meet new friends. Discuss the possibility of joining the church or a small group. Your pastor wants to hear from you so he can care for you.
Finally, a word to those who love their church: Bring others in. You might not feel the ache of loneliness in your walk with the Lord, but others do. They sit beside you on Sunday mornings or work beside you throughout the week. Be vigilant, always ready to welcome others into the Christian community you’ve found.
For Further Reading
As you read this passage from 1 Corinthians, consider the importance of each individual member as well as the importance of the whole body. Notice that you cannot have one without the other. Finally, consider what (or who) makes this community possible. After reading, consider what next step you might take to better cherish the local church.
Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
1 Corinthians 12:12–27 NIV
Notes
- Aaron Earls, “Americans’ Trust in the Church Remains Near Historic Low,” Lifeway Research, July 13, 2023, https://research.lifeway.com/2023/07/13/americans-trust-in-the-church-remains-near-historic-low/#:~:text=In%202009%2C%2052%25%20of%20U.S.,have%20trust%20in%20the%20church. ↩︎
- Edmund P. Clowney, The Church (IVP Academic, 1995), 15. ↩︎
Photo credit: Ashley Kate Miller
Ashley Anthony is a pastor’s wife, mom of four, literature instructor, and seminary student. She’s a member of College Church in Wheaton, Illinois, loves a good cup of coffee, and loves connecting on Instagram!
