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Community of Grace (from You Can Change by Tim Chester)

The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We are not allowed to be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is that we are sinners. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer) We can be communities of repentance only if were communities of grace. And this means being honest, open and transparent about our struggles. We see one another as we really are and accept one another just as Christ accepted us. We model grace in our welcome of sinners, just as Jesus did. It means I dont pose as a good person. Instead, I portray myself as I truly am: a sinner who constantly receives grace from Christ. It means we rejoice to be a messy community of broken people. Heres an entry I wrote in my blog: Someone asked me how things were going recently. Its not really a yes or no (good or bad) question. Life in our congregation is messy. People have a wide variety of problems and many of these problems are out on the table. Are things going well when one of your members has been hauled out of a pub in a drunken state? When people admit problems in their marriage? When people are struggling with depression? Actually I think the answer can be, Yes, things are going well. A key verse for me in recent years has been the first beatitude, which I paraphrase as: Blessed are the broken people for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Gods blessing is found among the broken people. I dont rejoice in peoples problems, but I do rejoice to be a part of a community of broken people. I sometimes describe our church as a group of messy people led by messy people. Its proved a context in which Ive been able to address my own struggles. Whats the alternative? One alternative is to be a church in which theres a lot of pretending where people have problems, but the culture doesnt allow them to be open. Churches like this are very neat and respectable. But I know Id rather be in a messy church! Mess reflects, I think, a culture of grace. We pretend because either we dont trust Gods grace for ourselves or we dont trust others to show us grace. In John 4, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well at noon. Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun, sang Noel Coward. You gather water in the cool of early morning. But she comes at midday to avoid the rest of the community because of the shame she feels. After shes met Jesus, however, she runs to the community shes been avoiding and says, Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. The good news for her was that Jesus told her everything she had ever done and still offered her living water! She no longer had to hide. And its this testimony that draws the townspeople to Jesus. We can confess our sin to one another because theres no longer any need to hide. Grace sets us free. Why dont we look to one another for support in change? Why dont we open up to others? Why do we avoid messy relationships? No doubt there are many reasons. Were too busy, too independent, too fearful, too self-absorbed. But if we truly believed that Jesus has given us the Christian community to help us change, then we would make it a priority.