Our church has a threefold process to foster spiritual growth. We want each member to engage Jesus Christ in God’s Word, through loving relationships, and by serving Him in ministry and on mission.

As we put it: 1) In the Bible. 2) In Community. 3) Serving God.

It’s one thing to read God’s Word and another to humble ourselves before God in His Word and to welcome Christ to teach our hearts and to submit to His Word, believing, living out of this new reality of the way things really are.

It’s also one thing to worship together every Sunday and another to commit to participate in the Christian life as a community together.

As a church, literally, “called out ones” (GK: ekklesia), we are called out of the crowd, out of the world’s way of thinking, of seeing life and making it work apart from Christ. Inherent in the word, “church” is a community, not a building or a weekly event. As Jesus’ church we are meant to face the devil, worldly peer pressure, and our own sin and brokenness, together. When we’re together in community, we get to defeat the lies and tell each other the truth about God and what He says about us in His Word. When we are the church, being in Christ directed community together, we offer safety to confess sin, admit weakness—to deal, to heal, and to get real about our struggles before others who love us, who love God’s Word and point to Jesus in all of it. In community, we nurture hearts that choose love, choose forgiveness, that choose obedience to Christ.

Tough stuff is done in community. Obviously, we will flub this up. Already have. We will again. None of this is risk-free. That’s why we are called to humble ourselves. In humility we trust GOD to work through His church; we welcome Abba to love us in tangible ways through others who love Him. As a church, we will awkwardly stumble through this, muck it up at times, and not do any of this perfectly and we’ll also reap incredible rewards, freedom, joy, and maturity. Without being in community, not being known, not humbling ourselves, without trusting Jesus to work through our church (the called out ones), to love us through our life group, through a godly friend who knows His Word… if we do this alone, fight the battle in isolation, it only settles it that these things will not happen.

Pastor Steve Behlke is at Grace United Church in Northampton, Massachusetts.