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Community
by
Cadet Leo Killion
I once lived in the most unwelcoming place I have ever been,
but with some of the most on fire people I have ever meet.
While I was there, I lived with, hung out with and even fought
with them, but at the end of the day God was glorified. That
was once upon a time ago and now we have all moved in
different directions.
Some of us have left because of God’s leading and others
because something had happened. What is community like when
one person goes and what happens to that person? What did that
one person do for that community? As I write about my
experience with living in community I’ll be wrestling through
some of the questions I have, and hopefully causing you to
question similar things.
Community is something you are born into, it’s a God given
thing. The Trinity Himself teaches us true community. Now, was
it fully active before moving into a community? For me, it
wasn’t. I had no full understanding of what community was
until I experienced it. I experienced the joys and pains of
community, but I tell you this, the joy was worth the pain.
The thing is, you can’t hide in community, or at least you
can’t hide well. Yes, it was painful when past hurt got
dragged up and embarrassing when sin was exposed, but the end
result of freedom and deliverance trumps any fear or pain that
was there in the first place. Once you get rid of all that
junk God then has more room to pour himself into you.
This is only the start! For once God has poured into us, we
can go out and pour into the people all around us from
children to adults and from the lost to the saved. So we can
say community is when God pours into us and we pour into
others, (and others pour into others and so on).
As a Salvation Soldier, I know that we often don’t stay in the
same community our whole lives, this is part of what makes The
Salvation Army unique. But what happens to those who do leave?
We must not think once we leave a particular community that we
loose community. No, that would be foolish; the beauty is you
are always part of that community. Community extends beyond a
specific location. Sure you can go back and maybe see that
place and you don't recognise the people or see what you
started, but you must understand the things we can see with
our eyes can lie. What you have done is far deeper then what
you could see.
The world doesn't need more cowboy’s, it needs community!
Cowboy’s go in and change things and ride off; but community
is where you go in and show, teach, fight along side others
from different places on how to stop that injustice, or have
the same understanding of Jesus.
Here is something about community we should never forget, but
often do -that you can always call upon your community, you
can always have them pour into you, and you into them no
matter what happens or where we go. Just as I said earlier
that community extends beyond a specific location, love also
knows no bounds.
What about that hole that we have left? Well don't worry about
that, God will bring more people and if what you did was so
important God will bring some one,
That is what I have learned since I have left my community.
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