What is the church? The church as a community

Church is Community (and vice-versa)

"Contemporary life can only be built and lived as fully human in the context of a community of faith. The church must reform its life to become a community for the humanization of people and social life. ' This is one of the thesis of J. H. Westerhoff in his article "The Church and the family" that was recently read by those who were in a family therapy course. Our society is so fragmented that the nuclear family is no longer enough to understand the term family. There are many people alone, single mothers, marriages that need a community to stabilize. We realize that many people who have come to a typical Church come as families or need a family to welcome them, or need to create an alternative family that provides their fundamental needs for order, economy, security, stability, education, support, etc. Many of these people will not be able to have an integral, dignified and healthy life if it is not within the framework of a community. Hence the need for the church to consider Church as Community, with the creation of family nuclei with people who are trained to do so and to welcome and coexist with the many today who need an alternative family to recompose their lives and overcome their problems that are more rampant than ever in our society.

From a historical perspective this is true of the earliest Church which focused on the transformative spiritual reality of the resurrected Christ of faith, as they were prepared by Jesus of Nazareth's life and teaching, in which he formed a little community right from the beginning of his ministry.  Yet, even as talk of community in the church is rooted in various concepts, primary among these is the notion of fellowship or koinonia. In Scripture Paul presents the relationship of believers to one another as a shared experience of salvation. This is often referred to in the Greek as koinonia.  Within the Greek cultural context the concept had wide-ranging meanings related to various types of common enterprises. However, the New Testament emphasis is upon the participation “in something deeper,” particularly realities outside one’s existence as touching the Divine Presence, rather than just associating “with someone” as a social contact which is often the emphasis in contemporary notions of “secular fellowship.”

In Paul’s writing we regularly see this idea of participation in spiritual realities, such as in the description of the Lord’s Supper to the Corinthians. Here, the Lord’s Supper signifies fellowship with Jesus Christ where the sharing of a common meal is a sharing in the body and blood of Christ. The Philippians are another instance of fellowship in terms of participation, but this time it is in reference to sharing in the fellowship of the life giving Holy Spirit (Phil 1:7). Both of these examples even more so, speak more about participation in the Divine Spirit rather than the fellowship created by the Holy Spirit. Sharing in the Spirit is the decisive factor in their life together. So to begin with Christ's Presence is vital and is fostered by the Divine or Holy Spirit which Christ said he would leave his dicsipleship community.

With that in mind in history, the Christian Church has always had the means to carry out the task of reforming its structures and adapting them to the needs of various cultures but it is even more so in our modern (or post-modern) society. But it is in attending above all to those who suffer the consequences of the destructive effects of this society and modernity, that the Church must address as exhibited in the example of its founder Jesus. In the church there must need be enough resources to exercise a Ministry of Reception, Internal health, counseling, follow-up, etc. which we term as overall pastoral care. Churches should also explore economic stewardship opportunities, or they should be created to provide economic means and work to those who need it.

Church community implies in reaqlity specific places (beside the time and place of worship as the pinnicle of sacred community) are also needed, whether in flats or in large houses, where they can organise different styles and modalities of community life of a family character. The most important thing is the people with vision, willing to respond to this call and ready to pay the personal and family price or sacrificial commitment to be able to carry out this goal of creating families, especially for those without family.

The church must be like an extended family or an inclusive family that provides what is necessary for a harmonious growth of each family and also for those who have no family. The same dynamics of the life of the Church in its organization of programs and activities should put the emphasis on "the church as a family Koinonia", with social moments, meals, excursions, holidays and all kinds of encounters and coexistences that make possible a communion Intimate and mutual help of all with all or at least the most empowered with the neediest.

According to Westerhoff we need a wider community to help us in times of need, to help us know God's will for our lives, to be forgiven and reconciled, so that we can grow in our relationship with God, with us With our neighbour and with the environment. This community of faith is not an idealistic dream, but the reality to which God is calling us. For our institutional churches to survive and respond to the needs of the people of our time have to be transformed into communities. The church needs to provide a quality of life and experience essentially different from life in society. "

There are modalities of community churches of all kinds. There are some where everyone lives in a community together. Others carry out their communal life living nearby with regular meetings to eat and share a similar faith lifestyle commitment together. There are several methods of sharing resources. There are also churches that admit in their bosom community lifestyles of varying degrees of intensity. All these and other forms are valid in order to provide a familiar environment for those who need it.

As we see in the Book of Acts after Pentecost, the early Church responded to the challenge of welcoming the thousands of new converts from far-flung countries into community-living homes. Among as they had need, each one contributed according to their possibilities and received according to their needs.

Today, this is even more so, with the various challenges of our contemporary society (like the epidemic of lonliness), that the Church must be open to take new forms that can solve and foster the sense of family, that with this community experience, we become, even more a spiritual family of faith, life, health and hope.
The first Christians gave us the example, because "... breaking bread in the houses, they ate together with joy and simplicity of heart" (Acts 2:42).

​