Just when people started coming back to church… Omicron. How many more Greek letters will we go through? As a pastor of a local Church, I’m concerned about the social implications on fellowship. Since the beginning of the pandemic, through technology, we can be close while keeping our distances. If we miss the worship service, we can fill our homes with an atmosphere of positivity by streaming albums or videos produced by world-class musicians. Also, there are millions of podcasts, e-books, audiobooks, and sermon audios and videos to keep our minds occupied with wholesome thoughts. What a blessing for those who are quarantined, who have a newborn at home, or are immunocompromised.

That being said, the effects are not all positive, as the studies of increased loneliness¹ and statistics on violence² can attest. It would appear that our generation has been granted a view into the effects of a technological Church over against a live meeting of the sanctified imperfect. The new situation has provided the type of experience where no one has to be offended, where the illusion of closeness lasts the length of a video that I can pause or choose not to show my face. It’s reminiscent of the pure, sharp, cold lines of modern architecture. Or to quote French Philosopher Jacques Ellul: “All this not only sterilises the intervention, but institutes a false relationship to a false real. I take for reality what is shown to me, and reality fades away.”³ This to me seems to be one of the more silent dangers, a loss of what’s real to what’s pictured, presented, and downloaded. A sterilised or homogenised version of what should be life changing—meeting God in the assembly.

So I’d like to ask myself and my readers, why do we need community? Is it truly necessary for our Christian experience? Before I begin to worry those who know me, I’ll state bluntly my position. Yes! I believe in the Church. I believe in fellowship and the need to meet in person with other believers, and I’ll limit my arguments to only five.

Community is part of Creation.

To begin, we need community because it is part of Creation. As God placed man in the garden to cultivate it and have dominion over creation (Gn 1:26-27; 2:18-20), He said, “It is not good that man should be alone” (Gn 2.18). The Lord then proceeded to create the woman as a helper. This was to be the beginning of culture, a series of relationships that was destined to be “a place of human flourishing.”⁴ It can be argued that God’s intention to meet man’s need was found in the marriage relationship in Genesis 2:18 and not the Church. Certainly, the immediate text would support this, as would the fact that no New Testament author cites this as a reason for community. But I would respond that within the Cultural Mandate to cultivate wholesome relationships through a generous stewardship of what God created for man’s care is an implicit design that humans aren’t made to live alone. I would also point to the fact that the English word we use for “church” is our translation for ἐκκλησία, “an assembly or gathering of people.”

Community helps us understand biblical covenantal relationships.

Closely tied to the last point, we need community because it helps us understand biblical, covenantal relationships. In our day, the word “friend” has come to mean anything from an acquaintance, to a marriage partner, to a digital name I can block whenever I no longer agree with their opinion. I’m convinced that most understand the varying degrees of friendship and commitment, but I wonder what the devaluation of the term has produced in relationships. When we consider the covenantal ceremonies in the Bible, like the one the Lord celebrated with Abram in Genesis 15:9-21, or the Lord’s supper in Matthew 26:20-29, we can read a permanence lasting throughout a lifetime. Although these are covenants concluded between God and man, the impact outlasted the lifetime of those men with whom God interacted. In both cases, the men involved were called friends (Gn 15:6; 2Chr 20:7; Is 41:8; Jn 15:15).

Before I get too far off subject, let me underline two observations: a friendship involves cooperation and togetherness. In the covenantal relationships, each one has a part. God gave blessings and promises, while Abraham believed and received. The Lord Jesus laid down His life, while we believe and receive today. Cooperation.

As for togetherness, both covenants involve two parties closely knit together. Is this not what we see in Paul’s description of the Church and its use of Spiritual Gifts in 1 Corinthians 12-14? The Church made of members so tight that Paul describes them as parts of a same body, working in harmony, and in a sense, the many become one. This is impossible to learn alone watching a screen or singing with Siri or Alexa. Although the nearness of God can be experienced, the full sense of community cannot.

Community helps us understand ourselves.

In a very similar way, we need community because it helps us understand ourselves. C.S Lewis spoke of this in The Four Loves. He wrote: “In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets.”⁵ His idea was that as we get to know another person, we find common interests and loves, perhaps discover new ones. We enter a conversation that becomes unique to the relationship that is felt as a true loss when the person is gone. In the same way, someone with a spiritual gift of administration needs a community of people with organisational needs, a teacher must have students, and someone who speaks in tongues during the service needs an interpreter. It’s much like a dance. As we move our feet to the music, we discover if we can feel the rhythm. As we hold our partner’s hand, we learn if we can lead fluidly or tend to step on toes. In this way, as applied to using our spiritual gifts in fellowship, we discover our unique place in the body of Christ.

Community helps us know God.

This brings me to another idea—we need community because it helps us know God. Church isn’t only about the sermon or the worship. We learn about God as we eat the bread and drink the cup, just as we do while watching a new believer baptised. But there are some things we can only learn about God while we are in relationship with other believers. It’s part of being created in His image and having that image restored through the New Birth. As I serve with a sister who has a different gift than I, she shows me how God works in ways I wouldn’t otherwise have known. It’s in her response, her gifts that I don’t posses. In the same way, I learn about God as a brother ministers to me or prays for my needs. More that just a perspective, it’s God working through him, so that if given eyes to see, I learn more about God than a simple transfer of information I can read in a book. I’m speaking of an experiential knowledge: observable, palpable or, to borrow a phrase from theologian John Frame, “to know God is friendship.”

The Bible imperatively demands community.

Lastly, we need community because the Bible imperatively demands it. Hebrews 10:25, probably one of the most quoted verses on the subject, says, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” As far as a lexical prooftext, we almost have an airtight case with this one. Note that the word translated “the assembling of ourselves,” ἐπισυναγωγή (a word composed of ἐπι—on + συν—with + αγω—to bring or lead), is the same word used in “the gathering together to the Lord” at His return in 1 Thessalonians 2:1.

This clear exhortation to persevere in meeting together is actually part of a much bigger thought. It’s the imperative to a powerful indicative statement, meaning it’s the application of what we’ve been given in Jesus (Hb 10:19-21). Because we have boldness to enter into the Holy Place (v19a), because Christ was the sacrifice that opened the way (v19b-20), and because He is the Great High Priest over the house of God (v21), we should not abandon the assembly. So in the end, meeting together is a vibrant and life-giving privilege that comes from above. It originates in what Jesus accomplished for us and translates into an act of worship.

_NOTES

_{¹ Hwang, Tzung-Jeng, Kiran Rabheru, Carmelle Peisah, William Reichman, and Manabu Ikeda. “Loneliness and Social Isolation during the COVID-19 Pandemic: International Psychogeriatrics.” Cambridge Core. Cambridge University Press, May 26, 2020.}

_{² Stripe, Nick. “Domestic Abuse during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic, England and Wales: November 2020.” Domestic abuse during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, England and Wales – Office for National Statistics. Office for National Statistics, November 25, 2020.}

_{³ Jacques Ellul, La parole humiliée, (Paris: La Table Ronde, 1981, réédition 2020), 229.}

_{Personal translation of the original: “Tout cet ensemble non seulement stérilise l’intervention, mais institue une fausse relation à un faux réel. Je prends pour réalité ce qui m’est montré, et le réel s’efface.”}

_{⁴ I borrow this phrase from Andy Crouch who uses it often in his written work.}

_{⁵ C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1960), 92, Digital Copy.}

In our last installment of Ecclesiology 101, we began to look at how the local church lives and breathes in relationship to prayer.

We laid the foundation by noting that prayer in its essence is man talking with God. It is using words to express to God what we sense and feel. It is using words to express our needs to God. It’s the use of words in responding to who God is, what God is doing or what God has done.

If that is what prayer is, then the book of Psalms is God’s textbook on prayer. Though the psalms have much to say about God — each author prays (talks to God) in response to what they know about God. That is the prerequisite of prayer. What we know about God is the soil in which prayer grows.

The prayers of David are a great example of this.

“Psalm 3 A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son.

O Lord, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying of my soul, “There is no salvation for him in God.” Selah But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around. Arise, O Lord! Save me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked. Salvation belongs to the Lord; your blessing be on your people!” (Psalm 3:1-8).

“Psalm 34 Of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away.

I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together! I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! (Psalm 34:1-8).

“Psalm 51 A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.”

They held back nothing from their intense, personal, in the moment prayers. They even made sure to write down the wrong attitudes and flawed passions that they spoke openly to God for us to see.

We ended by noting that what they PRAYED ALONE was also intended to be PRAYED TOGETHER.

David clearly intended Psalm 3 to be read and prayed in community:

“I cried aloud to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah Salvation belongs to the Lord; your blessing be on your people! Selah” (Psalm 3:4).

David intended Psalm 34 to be prayed in community:

“Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What man is there who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good?” (Psalm 34:9-12).

David intended that radical, intensely personal and brutally honest prayer of Psalm 51 to be sung in community. The full title of Psalm 51 is “To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.”

The book of Psalms became the prayer book of Israel. These prayers were prayed collectively when they gathered in the synagogue. They prayed these psalms as a community — knowing the needs of individuals in the synagogue — knowing who those prayers hit home with and knowing how those prayers resonated with the heart and spiritual state of the community as a whole.

Many of these prayers were put to music so they could be committed to memory. The Book of Psalms was the prayer book of Jesus — the Song Book of Jesus.

This “gathered” form of prayer continued in the newborn church.

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42).

“Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour” (Acts 3:1).

Peter and John were on their way to seek God in prayer with other believers. They did this together on a regular basis — at a regular time.

AGAIN — For a community of believers to live and breathe in connection with prayer presumes the individuals that comprise that community pray.

Prayer is an incredibly personal and privileged vertical conversation between an individual child of God and his or her heavenly Father. Prayer does have a necessary private context. Jesus modeled this in His own prayer life. He would get up before it was light and find a deserted place to be alone in prayer with His Father. He would come forth from those times of prayer with marching orders (“No, I can’t stay and preach to the crowds in Capernaum; I have to go to the unwalled towns and villages” — He chose the 12 after spending the night alone with His Father in prayer.)

Jesus taught about praying privately.

In Matthew 6:6, He taught about going into your own room and shutting the door behind you to pray. But the main point was not to encourage isolated prayer. That instruction was a warning against the temptation to pray publicly for the wrong reasons.

YES — prayer often begins when we’re alone. We pray our guilt, our pain, our joy. We pray on our bed at night (as the psalmist did). We even pray privately when surrounded by unbelievers in our neighborhood, or at work, or in the classroom. But we can never be with others non-stop. And by the way — we should never be with others non-stop. But we should always be aware of the fact that we are always with God.

God wants His children to have personal conversations with Him. Sometimes He demands them, right? But He also wants to have family conversations with His children. He wants us to call our friends into prayer. He knows that our prayers and our prayer life mature when they are integrated with the community of believers God has placed us in.

I really like how Eugene Peterson puts it: “By ourselves, we are not ourselves.” There is a very real way in which we are not fully ourselves until we are a part of a community of believers.

There is something extraordinary that happens when we pray with others who have prayed. There is something amazing when we put our knees on the ground together with others — we have the sense that we are on the same ground — our knees are level with their knees. By the way, It’s okay to get on our knees when we worship and pray together. I become more fully me when my hands are raised with your hands in praise and adoration, when my voice joins with your voices in praise and prayer, rejoicing or weeping. The point of worshiping and praying with all of you is not to express myself — but to become the person God saved me to be. By myself, I’m not really myself. By myself, I am not really myself — I am not the man Jesus redeemed me to be!

We are NOT naturally good at this.

It goes against the individualism of culture. It goes against the grain of how we are so very self-conscious about what others think or feel about us. It goes against the grain of how we would rather not be known. We would not have the psalms if that were the case. The psalms were self-disclosing! Those prayers made known the deepest needs, greatest failures and personal fears of the writer to the community of God’s people.

And as they were prayed in community, people owned those same needs, those same failures and those same fears as their own. As individuals, we are wonderfully and beyond comprehension of the objects of God’s grace and love. But when we pray in community — grace and love suddenly have objects outside of ourselves. And as we pray with others — praying about our needs and failures and fears — we also become the object of God’s grace and love through His other children.

We do pray in song today. Sometimes we sing the lyrics of the psalms.

When we sing the psalms, are we singing them as OURS?

DO we sing the words as OUR prayers? Are we self-disclosing? When we do, we experience community! When we do, we actually become more of who Jesus saved us to be.

This is why I struggle so much with so much of what is called worship today. It is more about musicality — more about performance — more about vibe and production than praying together.

“We call our worship ‘dynamic’ or ‘exciting’ or ‘engaging.’ The unintended message is that worship is not for God — but really for the worshiper. Which raises the question – who are we worshiping?” –Jared C. Wilson, Prodigal Church

“Between 1995 and 2000 I’d traveled to a host of worship-driven churches — On the good occasions, the worship experience was transporting… Too many times, I came away with an unnamed, uneasy feeling. Something was not quite right. The worship felt disconnected from real life. Then there were the services when the pathology… came right over the platform and hit me in the face. It was unabashed self-absorption, a worship culture that screamed, ‘It’s all about us…'”– Sally Morgenthaler

If prayer is an integral part of how the local church lives and breathes, how do we get past our natural inclination toward individualism and self-consciousness?

I believe it’s crucial to remember why we find ourselves in a specific gathering of believers.

God saved you — quarried you out to be a building block — a living stone built on the foundation of Jesus — related to the cornerstone and fitted alongside other living stones. All that you are in Jesus, all that He is desiring to do in and through you is inextricably tied to the fact that He places us next to a very specific collection of other living stones.

You will never be the living stone Jesus saved you to be until you do life with the other living stones around you — and a huge part of that life means that you move from PRAYING ALONE to PRAYING TOGETHER with and for these other living stones.

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30, NKJV).

Do you get excited when you learn something new about a verse that you’ve read many times before? Do you get even more excited when the Holy Spirit seems to connect the dots between that new thing and your everyday life? A couple of years ago I learned something new (to me) about these verses, and the Holy Spirit is still connecting the dots. I know He wants to do the same for all of us.

Listening To Rabbi Jesus

Jesus was one of many rabbis that taught in synagogues and trained up disciples to carry on His teachings. In fact, many of the things Jesus says seem a bit confusing at first read, until you realize He’s using an expression that was commonly used among rabbis and known by the people at the time. When we put on the “rabbi filter” and read these verses from Matthew, this is what we discover.

First century Israel was an agricultural society. They used oxen and donkeys to plow fields and power simple machines. If one ox is good, two is better. You would put a yoke around the neck of the oxen, which then bound them to one another and to the plow, or wagon or whatever they were pulling. The two functioned as one. Whichever ox was stronger, or more stubborn, or had more experience, was the one that set the pace for both of them. Where one led, the other had to go because of the yoke.

If you needed to train a new ox, one that had matured enough to do a day’s work, you would put it in a yoke with an older, more experienced ox. This ox knew how fast to go and how much energy to use so as not to get burned out too early in the day. One ox trained the other.

This was one of the pictures that rabbis, including Jesus, used to communicate the process of learning to be a disciple of a rabbi.

Teamed Up With Jesus

In my own imagination I’ve always pictured the believer as an ox all by itself and Jesus as a farmer sitting on an empty wagon, steering and driving the ox. Am I the only one? I don’t think that’s what it’s supposed to be.

Instead, what I think Jesus is trying to communicate, what His original hearers would have understood, is this: Jesus is the more experienced ox, which in itself is a Biblical pattern for a servant, with whom I am to be yoked. As I am yoked to Him I can learn His pace, His rhythms, His strength and His direction.

This gives me goose bumps! Go back and reread the verses at the beginning of this article with that picture in mind.

The yoke was a picture of the manner in which rabbis trained their disciples. They could be rough, harsh and manipulative. Jesus said that His yoke was easy, which means gracious, kind and gentle.

The burden was the rules and regulations rabbis would put on their disciples. Think of the things Jesus often dealt with in regard to the legalism of the pharisees. Jesus said that His burden was light, meaning just that, not heavy. It wasn’t a drag.

Putting It All Together

Oftentimes Bible teachers today put this verse out as a call to people who are burned out by life. Life can be very hard to be sure. Sickness, finances, politics, addiction, family turmoil, depression, the list goes on. However, in context, these verses are not primarily aimed at people who are having a hard time in life.

In context, these verses are primarily aimed at people who want to follow God, but they have a harsh yoke and a heavy burden put on them by those who are leading them. Jesus is talking to people trapped in any religious system where there are rules to follow and standards to meet & exceed in order to be saved. Laws, not love. Rules, not relationship.

The reason we cannot apply these verses to simply being burned out by life is because taking Jesus’ yoke upon ourselves, which is an act of choice and obedience, doesn’t automatically make life easy. The things we deal with in life don’t just go away and suddenly life becomes light.

What does happen as we take on Jesus’ yoke, is that the way in which we deal with life changes.

If you are someone who is burned out by life, Jesus’ words do apply to you. What you may not realize is that you are following someone. It might be yourself, it might be the culture, but you are yoked to someone; and it is harsh and heavy. Stop following that and start following Jesus.

The purpose of being yoked with Jesus is to let Him lead while we learn. We learn how to navigate these things the way Jesus did, the way Jesus does.

. We learn to go at His pace and not be in a rush nor be too slow.
. We learn His rhythms, which means we learn when to work and when to rest.
. We learn to rely on His strength as well as using the strength and skills with which He has equipped us by His Spirit.
. We learn to follow where He leads and not go our own way.

How Do We Do This?

First, you have to be someone who wants to go deeper with the Lord, just like those Jesus was talking to in Matthew. You get out of a relationship what you put into it, which includes your expectations. If you don’t expect Jesus to do anything, or if you don’t expect to get anything out of this, then He won’t, and you won’t.

Second, obey Jesus’ command to “come.” Find ways to actively and intentionally be near to Him. How do we do this? It depends on how you’re wired. Try some combination of the following and find what works for you. If/when it stops working, because we all change over time, try a different method.

Prayer: Speaking with God. You talk, He listens. He talks, you listen. You can pray in your head silently, out loud, or even written. Find ways to pray throughout the day because Jesus is moving through the day.
Bible Reading: Churches often provide a reading schedule you can use. Free and paid Bible apps provide a variety of reading plans. They are usually based on a topic, or reading a part of the Bible over a period of time. There are audio Bibles you can listen to on breaks at work.
Bible Study: This is different than Bible reading. To be a Christian is to be a student of ancient history. Pick a book of the Bible, a character or a topic and try to become an expert on it. You may or may not become an actual expert on it, but it gives you a level of depth and commitment to aim for. There are podcasts from Bible teachers, Bible schools and universities with materials on ancient history and languages, all available for free in many cases.
Devotionals: Devotionals often provide most of the above elements in “bite sized” pieces for you to read and pray through every day. Some pastors provide a daily devotional email you can subscribe to. You can find devotionals in book form, included in Bible apps and as standalone apps.

Third, put it into practice. Follow Him. Don’t run ahead and try to impress Him. Don’t hang back thinking He is going to do everything for you either. It’s a partnership. Watch what He does and do it. Listen to what He says, believe it and share it.

It was understating the picture that Jesus was using that partially inspired me to embark on a project called The Rhythm Journal. I needed something to help me recognize Jesus’ yoke in my life, so I made this for myself. If you are looking for something to help you be consistent in your daily habits, or perhaps learn them for the first time, it might be helpful to you as well.

The point is, if you are tired and feel overloaded in how you are trying to follow after God, or tired of doing things your own way, then stop. Team up with Jesus. Get in His yoke with Him, learn how He does it, and your soul will be refreshed. Develop a habit of prayer that works for you. Find a way to keep God’s word in your mind and heart all day everyday. Become an expert at something in the Bible and share it with others. As you do this you will be regularly equipped to follow Him and His example.

Where do you need to start?