From Isolation to Community

Was there ever a time in your life where you felt completely alone? If we all look back at moments in our life, I think we can all pinpoint various times where we felt alone. I remember right before my senior year of high school, I felt completely alone. Right after my junior year in high school, my family moved from California to Colorado, which meant that I would begin my last year of high school in a new school, with new classmates, and new teachers. A week before school started the school held an orientation for all the incoming students, so you could register for classes, get your photo taken, get your locker, and do anything else that you need to do before school starts. My parents drove me to the orientation and dropped me off at the door. Right before they dropped me off, they asked me if I was ok. I responded with a confident “yes”. As I began to start the orientation process I saw numerous students hugging each other and shaking hands because this was the first time they’ve seen each other since school ended. My heart began to crumble and I felt completely isolated.

I don’t know if you ever seen this scene in a movie: there’s a person standing in a crowd of people and the camera focuses in on the character who’s completely still and the people in the background are out of focus of the camera, but they’re moving in fast forward all around him. That’s how felt, standing in the middle of this large school lobby with other students moving all around me. Even though I was in the midst of a few hundred students, I felt completely alone.

Maybe you’ve felt alone at some point in your life as well.Or maybe, just maybe you live your life isolated from the world around you. The thing about isolation is that it can come in many forms. Isolation can come from your choices or your own circumstances. There are some of us who choose to be isolated. We fail to emotionally, physically, and spiritually invest into a community of faith. Some of us choose to be isolated in what we share with other people, causing our conversations to be shallow. We can also choose to be isolated physically, always wanted to stay in our homes without interacting with society. Isolation can also come through circumstances. You could be physically unable to leave your home or hospital bed and that is isolation. Or maybe you don’t have any family or friends around, that’s isolation as well.

In God’s big vision of humanity, it was never meant to be lived alone, by choice or by circumstances. We were never created to be isolated – we were never created to be alone in any part of our lives. God’s vision for your life is for you to live your life in true community with humanity. The Bible is all about living with one another. Jesus tells us that the second greatest commanded is to love one another. All through out the New Testament there are multiple commands on how we are to deal with one another. Humanity was never meant to be isolated in anyway, shape, or form. God’s vision for humanity is for us to living in true, authentic, and free community

I have this vision of being part of a Christian community where you can be honest about your doubts and fears without being met with worn-out cliches or empty words; a place that recognizes faith as a progressive process, not the product of “quick-fixes"; a place where you can get help today but be challenged to grow so you're better prepared to face tomorrow; a place of intimacy, where you can know and be known; a place where it is hard not to find God; a place where finding God is as corporate as it is personal; a place where you belong whether you're single, married, divorced, widowed, young, old, rich, poor, smart, dull, thin, fat, beautiful; a place to be part of something bigger than yourself; a place that needs you; a place of safety; a place of off-limits to witches, demons, and the walking dead - the safest place in the world. A place where we live as a church that breaks free from isolation. I have this vision of a church where Satan cannot use our isolation as bondage over us. That would be true community; it would be Jesus’ vision for the church.