Wholistic Discipleship Communities

Follow up to my Sunday post.

I would describe Wholistic Discipleship Communities as an intentional community where the existing body of Christ is operating in a way to come along side each other in all areas of life; work, play, parenting, schooling, in sickness or disaster, home life, social, spiritual and any other aspect of someone's life.

In the past Christian bodies such as this have been considered 'counter culture', like Jesus People USA or The Simple Way. These communities have lived an authentic Christian community lifestyle and have shown us the value and the biblical basis in which they operate.

But now, in the midst of the 'never slow down' culture (traffic reports every five minutes around the clock, emailing, on-line dating, done-in-a-minute and off to something else microwave mentality) we are literally seeing people dying for this type of real connection with people.

As a result, we have seen the increase and the effectiveness of the cell-group strategy from Willow Creek and Saddleback, now into almost every neighborhood church. A problem with these have been the modern evangelical 'spiritual segmentation' which allows for us to deal with our spiritual/Jesus stuff on Sundays and Thursday nights in a small group, but has little play throughout the rest of the week and therefore lacks a certain amount of Christian wholeness or authenticity in the rest of our lives.

In our small group, 'Mini-Church' as we call them, we have incredible ethnic, economic and age diversity. But in three short months we have a situation where anyone would stop anything to help or minister to each other. Last week the leaders, a couple in our Mini-Church was hit head-on by an older woman who evidently passed out. This couple immediately called another sister from Mini-Church, who was there within five minutes. She accompanied them to the hospital (amazingly they are completely fine, Praise God) praying and ministering to them. Another guy needed a job and I have an Aunt and Uncle who needed a quality, experienced manager for one of their hearing aid stores. Within a week, he had a good paying job, which afforded him the necessary time with his family. There is story after story like this from just our Mini-Church, one of 50 or so in our church.

In the inner city this community works best operating on an intentionally more wholistic level. I believe the suburban groups need to as well, but these communities can more easily hide felt-needs behind good paying jobs and the accumulation of material possessions.

Everyone in one of these communities whether it be a cell group, Sunday school class, support group, or group of neighbors must have a role to play. Everyone needs to have ownership to fully belong. This exemplifies the body of Christ in that we all need each other.

My Lessons

Now, let me be honest about my initial thoughts in entering this community. I was very hesitant, to say the least. I felt I didn't need any new friends. I couldn't ever return the calls I got before joining this group. But now I have lunch with several of the group each month, we meet at least bi-weekly and we talk on the phone, email each other, etc. I did not see the spiritual nurturing, encouragement, or joy that I would get out of this close knit group. I have learned much more than I have given, and the funny thing is that everyone feels that way!

I have met a new hero, a single mom raising five kids and they don't even have a permanent place to live right now! She is doing an amazing job that I couldn't even try to do. And the father of her children just joined us last Sunday night for his first time. He said, "All I have heard about you guys is that you're a big family".

This illustrates the principle that if Christians live like they're suppose to, it will be an attractive situation to the world. We don't have to go out and beat them over the head about Christ, they are drawn to Him through this authentic communities interactions and love for each other. They will know us by our love…