Archaeology of Knowledge

“Community” is a word that I had exorcised from my vocabulary. For a time, it was a buzzword, a piece of jargon in certain Christian circles. You could say the word, and if everything else you said was wrong or stupid, it didn’t matter, people would swoon because you said “community” in a breathy, spiritual way.

And it seemed the more people talked about it, the less I saw of it.

But enter the gentle madness of the bean patch. Last night, Jason, Tawndee, Maggie, Jan, and Matthew joined me in picking two and half bushels of beans, along with some cukes, okra, and tomatoes. Like I have said before, there is a lot of good conversation that can happen… a lot of… dare I say it… “community.” Even if it’s only me and Jason trying our best to avoid joining the chicks in validating each other’s feelings…

Something forms over human work. It is finally work together that defines us as human. So there we were, doing the most basic human work together. John and Joe jumped in and out as they felt like it. Something subtle takes place as you work alongside one another, getting used to the voices, the posture, the movement, how you pick beans off the same plant with someone else, because there’s just that many beans.

But really, this rehabilitation of the word began to happen somewhat earlier. It’s not just that David and Ron were talking about “microfellowship,” where disparate groups of people clump together around seemingly simple things that press the complexity out of our lives. It started for me on 12^th Street. I know people are going to get sick of me talking about the things happening there, but it truly is Jesus stuff.

You can walk in for the first time and be community. It is a strange and precious gift. And then, this thought hit me: it is a free-flowing and organic thing. What will it take for a church to live and breathe like that? To be barely organized? I recognize that you need some structure, but there is a place we get to where structure becomes structure for its own sake, and even the most change-driven mindset can’t break out and trash what has been done so that what is waiting to break loose can be set free.

But I digress. It’s a strange and powerful thing to see that fellowship, community, hospitality, prayer, and evangelism are working together. I am getting into some doors and some lives because of the work that is done there on Friday nights and because of the prayers that are lifted up. One of the women prayed that I would go to a particular house and that they would ask me something specific. I went and they did. And now, through a ministry of prayer with them, Jesus is entering their lives. None of it happens, tho, if there is no prayer and evangelism supported by fellowship and hospitality.