Growing in Christlikeness - day 1

Christlikeness through community

Introduction to Christlikeness: 

You will notice from your schedule that we have a Christlikeness session daily here at the Global Gathering. Why is being like Christ important? We are created to reflect the goodness of God, our lives should show others what Christ is like. We chose to focus on this theme during the Gathering because it is an opportunity to develop our understanding of what it looks like to be like Christ as organisations and not just as individuals. So the purpose of these sessions is to help us consider how we can encourage the organisations we lead or of which we are part to better express the character of Christ.

We will do this through exploring Scripture, listening to stories of organisations that have a focus on a specific attribute of Christ, and engaging in discussion and prayer.

We recognise that growth in any area of our lives takes time to happen. A short session considering and discussing the different attributes of Christ cannot make us experts. Rather, we will need to engage in an ongoing process of intentional reflection and activity - coupled with a corporate commitment to practise what the Lord has revealed to us. We pray that through these sessions of reflection and discussion, both during the Global Gathering and afterwards, we can learn from one another and grow to reflect Christ both within the Alliance and to those around us.

We start today with the theme of ‘community’.

I was recently looking at a bush in our garden which has clusters of flowers and it struck me that there is a great parallel between the flowers on the bush and all of us in community.

Here is a picture of one flower from the bush. It is intricately made and beautiful in its own right. It reflects the attention to detail of the Creator.

However, when we look at the cluster of flowers we find the impact of the collection of individual flowers to be different. There is an intensity of colour and they look more robust and less vulnerable to the weather and pests that may damage or destroy.

Then we look at the whole bush and the flowers have a different impact again. We see a riot of colour, an intensity of beauty that we did not find with the individual flower. It’s not that the beauty or the value of the individual flower is called into question, but the impact of the whole bush is so much greater on the garden where it grows.

As we consider the role of community as a characteristic of the Alliance we recognise that we are a global community whose impact can be greater than the individuals serving the Mission of God within it. We know that any analogy falls short. We see the importance of community being so much more than simply reflecting the glory and purpose of Christ. We pursue community to support, nurture, encourage and enable the whole body to function at its best for the furthering of God’s kingdom.

Let’s look at another metaphor for community - a starling murmuration. (video)

This phenomenon is seen in some of our countries when at dusk: a large group of starlings gather together before roosting. Some suggest that the purpose is to attract a large group for warmth and safety through the night, but scientists are not certain why it happens. To those of us outside it looks like a complex and beautifully choreographed dance. The scientists have studied how it happens and apparently, it takes very few “rules” to create this amazing display:

• Each bird keeps a specific distance between themselves and their seven closest neighbours
• They fly as fast as they can
• Those on the outside try to move from the edge further into the group.

This is all it takes for such a group of birds to create these amazingly beautiful and gracious displays.

If you are here it’s likely that you are committed to being part of the Alliance because you recognise the benefits of being part of a community. There is safety and strength together. However, how often do we consider how we are reflecting the glory of God by living well as a community? It may be that the birds do not even realise that they are creating this amazing display. But as we watch it we see the beauty of not just the display but the Creator.  Like the starlings, we can't see the beautiful display that we are making because we are in the middle of it, but it's there giving glory to God and accomplishing his purposes!

Our purpose therefore through the Gathering and beyond is to build community in a way that reflects the glory of God. Let’s consider how Jesus demonstrated and built community in his context. I think we can also look at the disciples and how they became a community from being a very diverse group and continued to develop into the Body of Christ after Jesus died, rose and ascended.

In our tables we will discuss the following questions:

Discussion questions:

• How did Jesus create community? Share some examples.
• How did he teach a community mindset?
• How did he demonstrate the value of community?

Then choose one of these principles that you will focus on this week. Share with your group and pray for one another. We invite you to write anonymously on a post-it the principle on which you will focus. Come and share it on the board here. There will be time during the break to read what others have written.