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Community - a relationships phenomenon

Posted on July 2, 2009 | Filed Under Asia and Beyond, Ministries, News 

Over the last dozen years my wife, Judy and I have been privileged to encourage a loving community of people to walk with God and reach out to others as light and salt.

It began with one student, then two or three. Then they would bring their contacts together weekly in our home to discover what the Bible says about just about everything. Some had to believe in Jesus, first, and they did. We met every Tuesday, so we called ourselves the Tuesday Group.

As time passed the core became a community centred on Christ, the Bible and the adventure of the Great Commission. Then something happened and they became close, like “family.” So we called ourselves the Tuesday Community.

Judy and I didn’t set out to create a community. It just happened. Being a community is a good thing. We are made that way. It is one of the ways that God keeps us healthy and productive. See Genesis 10:32, Psalm 8:6 and Ephesians 2:19.

Later, the family dispersed physically, as God led them and life took them. They married, had children, bought homes and looked to their careers. Judy and I let them go, but stayed in touch. Weekly studies and prayer ended, but today we meet every few months, with a similar but looser format, this time with babies and toddlers! We also pull together to help one another out—fixing houses, moving, painting and so on.

Recently, one of the men thoughtfully observed what attracted him to the Tuesday Group in the first place. Nigel needed a Bible study group that encouraged discussion without being restrictive, something that gave him freedom. He liked being around people who were serious about the Great Commission, and not, like some, just filling in time, or using the group to meet people.

Why are we still together? Our community meets a need not met elsewhere, Nigel says. Our common purpose is and always was the Navigator vision and mission.

If we had to do it again to achieve this happy result, this is what we would do:

1. Centre the fellowship on the Bible. Study what is necessary, like the basis for salvation and following Christ. Deal biblically with life issues. Encourage Bible study preparation, but do not censure if it is not  done.

2. Accept everyone without conditions—have no hoops for people to jump through.

3. Encourage socialising by having common and unusual experiences. We took the group hunting for fossils. We took them on a holiday weekend to find gold in the creeks. I told them once, “Love one another.” And they did, and do today.

4. Meet every member of the community personally from time to time, and discuss what’s going on, and what should be going on, and pray together, developing these personal relationships.

5. Have a cutting edge, promoting evangelism, sometimes doing it with them, and reporting back how they are doing and praying about our contacts.

6. As founders of the community, trust God and relax. This is a relationships phenomenon, and can’t be engineered using a formula, including this one.

The Tuesday Community is growing, with six children and a few adherents. Some of the community have their own, growing personal ministries. And when we are all together, we urge them to follow Christ and fulfil the Great Commission through spiritual generations. What they have seen in us, they are beginning to do.

(by Sandy Fairservice, former New Zealand Navigators Communications Director and author of The Asia
Legacy (www.fairservicenz.com)

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