This is a 12 part summer blog series on Authentic Community.  I hope you will read along and make some comments.  Two books that I would recommend are: Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Making Room for Life by Randy Frazee.

An Aspen grove is one of the largest living organisms.  They grow in large colonies which are interconnected by a massive root system.  Though individual trees only have a life-span of 40-150 years the root system is long-lived.  No individual part of an Aspen colony is alive for long apart from the larger colony. 

There is a lot we can learn about community from an Aspen grove.  First, it is a living organism.  Somewhere along the way early in Church history Christian community became more about being an organization than a living organism.  And today we are still suffering from this wrong view of Church and Christian community.  The Church is not a building or a certain denominational structure.  The Church is the people of God, an organic community of people alive to God and community with each other.  When we say things like, “I am going to Church,”  we are feeding the wrong idea of Church as a building or place rather than a community of people.  Part of the Kingdom message Jesus came to preach was that there are no more “houses of God” but bodily temples of God as the Holy Spirit indwells the believer.  He made this clear in John chapter 4 in talking with the woman at the well when He said to her, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem…Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.”  And this message of the kingdom was carried on by the early church as well.  In Acts chapter 7 Stephen says, “However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men.  As the prophet says: ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.  What kind of house will you build for me?’”  Does this mean it is wrong to have church buildings?  I do not think so, but it does mean that we have to work extra hard to define what church is and authentic community.  “Doing Church” or “Having Church” is not what just happens at the church building.  It is what happens when believers gather together in homes, neighborhoods and in the larger community.  We need to work at putting a higher priority on developing healthy deep relationships among the Body rather than on managing programs and activities.  If we see Church as a building or organization it will just be a place we attend rather than belong or just an event rather than lifestyle.  How do you view church? 

The second important thing that an Aspen grove can teach us about community is interdependence.  The foundation to a healthy tree is completely dependent upon it’s connection to the other trees through a massive underground root system.  Also, somewhere along the way in Church history as buildings began to define church more than relationships the subtle idea that we can follow Jesus independent from His Church Body crept in.  And American individuality has driven this lie deep within most American believers with the result of a lost and at best superficial community.  The New Testament makes it clear that we are to grow in Christ together.  Paul says in Romans 12:5, “…so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”  Do you see your spiritual health and your family’s spiritual health as radically dependent upon your connection to the Body of Christ His Church?  Without this awakening we cannot build authentic Christian community.  It was the growth of this kind of community in the early church which transformed neighborhoods, cities and nations.