The Connecting Church

Randy Frazee

• Publisher: Zondervan
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780310559481
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

The development of meaningful relationships, where every member carries a significant sense of belonging, is central to what it means to be the church. So why do many Christians feel disappointed and disillusioned with their efforts to experience authentic community? Despite the best efforts of pastors, small group leaders, and faithful lay persons, church too often is a place of loneliness rather than connection.Church can be so much better. So intimate and alive. The Connecting Church tells you how. The answer may seem radical today, but it was a central component of life in the early church. First-century Christians knew what it meant to live in vital community with one another, relating with a depth and commitment that made "the body of Christ" a perfect metaphor for the church. What would it take to reclaim that kind of love, joy, support, and dynamic spiritual growth? Read this book and find out.

1: THE LONELIEST NATION ON EARTH

To all appearances and by all standards the Johnsons have a wonderful life. They own a house in a nice suburb with four bedrooms, two baths, and a rear entry two-car garage. Their house is surrounded by a six-foot fence to provide privacy for an in-ground pool, barbecue grill, and patio furniture. Bob and Karen have two children—a boy and a girl. Each of them has a college degree; they both work and have a combined household income well above the average for their community. Most important, everyone in the family is in good health.

Yet if you could enter the hearts and thoughts of Bob and Karen Johnson, you would discover that they have dreams and fears no one else knows about. While they have never voiced it to anyone, there is an increasing sense of isolation, distress, and powerlessness growing inside of them. In a nutshell, the Johnsons have done a fine job “keeping up with the Joneses,” but they still are not happy.

How could this be? The Johnsons are living the American Dream. There are so many people who are less fortunate. Actually, this personal dilemma, which is quietly gnawing away a sense of contentment in the Johnsons, is a national epidemic—and their experience is no surprise to sociologists and pollsters. George Gallup Jr. concluded from his studies and polls that Americans are among the loneliest people in the world.¹ This seems unbelievable when you think of the availability of transportation and the billions of dollars of discretionary money available for entertainment. Americans can buy so much activity—how can they possibly be so lonely? Today more than three-fourths of the American people live in metropolitan areas, and more than two-thirds of those live in suburbs.² We are surrounded by more people than ever before in the history of our country. With these undeniable benefits in place, how could a Gallup Poll rank us among the loneliest people in the world?

Let’s take a closer look at the story of Bob and Karen. Eight years ago Bob took a job at an office located in a growing suburb. Although this took them further from their families, both Bob and Karen had agreed that it would still be feasible to fly home on occasion because they were making more money and the airport was in close proximity to their house. Bob and Karen both rise at 6:30 A.M. Bob rushes to leave the house at 7:00 to beat the rush hour traffic; doing so allows him to get to work in thirty-five minutes as opposed to fifty-five minutes. He opens the door leading into the garage, hits the garage door opener, gets into his car, and pulls out of the driveway. He spots his new neighbor taking out the trash and waves to him with a forced smile on his face. As Bob drives down the street, he reminds himself that his new neighbor has been in the neighborhood now for two years, and he still can’t remember his name. This thought lasts for about five seconds before the radio is turned on, and Bob’s mind now turns to the matters of the day.

Karen has worked out an arrangement to be at work at 9:00 A.M. so she can drop off her two children at school at 8:15.There is the usual rush to get herself and the two children ready and out the door by 7:55, but on this day she manages to pull it off. With the same ritual precision, Karen makes her way to the car and starts heading out the driveway when one of the children announces that he has left a lunch inside. The easiest move for Karen would be to go back in through the front door, but she sees her next-door neighbor, one of the few retired people in the area, beginning her yard work for the day. While Karen would love to catch up with her elderly neighbor, she is afraid if they engage in a conversation the children will be late for school—and then she’ll be late for work. So rather than risk being late, Karen makes her way back to the rear entry garage, opens the door with the automatic opener, and goes inside. As she grabs the forgotten lunch from the kitchen table, she realizes she has forgotten to set the security system. Once this is accomplished, off she goes again.

Bob and Karen encounter an average day at work—nine-and-a-half hours at the office, completing only four-and-a-half hours of real productive work. Both will bring home bulging briefcases, in the hopes of sneaking in another hour of work after the children are in bed. At 3:30, the children go to their after-school program and wait for Mom or Dad to pick them up.

It is 5:00 P.M., and Bob absolutely must leave the office if he is to pick up the children on time from the after-school program. As it often goes, Bob doesn’t leave until 5:20, and he gets trapped in a ten-minute traffic jam because of a stalled car on the freeway. He arrives at the school thirty minutes late. Everyone is just a little edgy.

Bob and the kids pull into the rear entry garage at 6:15. Bob turns off the security system, ensuring that no one has tampered with their home while they have been gone. Karen arrives at 6:30.The first order of business is dinner. Bob and Karen agreed two years ago, with a little help from a family therapist, that with Karen’s return to work to help pay the bills, sharing household chores was going to be a vital part of suburban life; Bob would need to share the load with her in the evenings.

While the children watch television, Mom and Dad are working together to heat up a tray of frozen lasagna and garlic bread. After dinner, the dishes are cleaned up, the mail is perused, homework papers are checked, and the children get ready for bed. It is now 9:00 P.M. The children are a half hour late getting to bed, but it was the best they could do. At 9:15 Bob and Karen finally sit down. They are exhausted, really too tired to talk, so the television gets beamed on, right in the middle of some prime-time drama. They both watch television until the news is over, look at their briefcases for a moment, and agree to let the work go undone. Finally, at 11:30, they make it to bed. A couple of words are exchanged, mostly businesslike talk concerning tomorrow’s details. As they close their eyes, they both ponder how easy this day was. The remainder of the week nights will be filled with sports practices, games, music lessons, and some evening meetings at the office.

The next day the family rises again to engage in what has become a way of life for five out of the seven days of their week. But now, the weekend has arrived!

Saturday and Sunday are used for three primary activities: house and lawn care, children’s sports, and church. These activities take up most of the available hours, but on the average weekend there are a few hours of open time to be used for soaking in life with family and friends. The problem the Johnsons have is common for many other contemporary couples. First, their extended family members live in other cities around the United States. Second, they were so busy during the week they didn’t make plans to do something with another family. Finally, while they would be open to spending some spontaneous time with the neighbors, no one is out in their front yards except a few men mowing their lawns with earphones wrapped securely around both ears and the companion radio strapped to their khaki-colored shorts. Everyone else is either away from home or safely sheltered inside their centrally air conditioned/ heated homes, fully equipped with cable television or satellite dish—or if not inside the house, they’re in their backyards, which are completely landscaped for privacy.

Occasionally an outing is planned with another couple or family who may live in another part of town. The time always seems to be a positive experience—yet, because few of the gatherings are routinely with the same family, neither Bob nor Karen feels comfortable sharing their deepest dreams and fears. Another weekend comes to a close with unvoiced stress and boredom, and Bob and Karen individually conclude that this was an unusual week; next week will be better. Well, eight years have now passed since they adopted their “American Dream” lifestyle, with somewhere around 416 weeks classified as “unusual.”

Oh, there is one more important aspect to the Johnsons’ life. Bob and Karen are Christians. They attend church just about every Sunday and have been involved in a church-sponsored small group for a little over a year. The group is made up of other couples of roughly the same age and meets in one of the members’ homes every other week.

The Sunday worship services are usually uplifting and inspiring. Bob and Karen feel a sense of satisfaction with their children’s involvement in the Sunday school program. As a matter of fact, it was their desire to give their children a religious and spiritual foundation that brought them back to church after a lapse during college and their early years of marriage. While the church is extremely friendly, the only people they really know are those who attend their small group.

The Johnsons’ small group usually meets on the first and third Thursday night of each month from 7:00 to 9:30. The members of the group rotate the task of hosting the meeting in their homes. Most of the members live about ten to twenty minutes away from each other.

Bob and Karen joined the group in the hopes of finding a surrogate extended family, or at least a set of close friends with whom they could share their dreams and fears. After a year’s worth of faithful attendance to the group, the Johnsons started to miss some of the meetings. Why? There were several reasons. First, with their tight weekday schedule, it was difficult to eat dinner, check homework papers, bathe the children, pick up a baby-sitter, drive to the small group get-together by 7:00, leave around 10:15, then take the baby-sitter back home, and return home around 11:30.This routine simply exhausted this couple, who were in search of meaningful friendships and a sense of personal peace.

A second reason the priority for the small group diminished was the children’s sports games and practices. Both children play soccer and baseball—and one or both of the children have either a practice or a game on Thursday night.

A third reason was the disappointment the Johnsons were feeling over how seldom the members of the group got together outside of the regularly scheduled meetings. There seemed to be a mutual desire on everyone’s part to get together, but something always seemed to prevent a more relaxed and spontaneous outing. Because the group only saw each other for a few hours twice (sometimes only once) a month, there wasn’t the sense of intimacy the Johnsons wanted in order to feel free to really share their dreams and fears. While they would consider their small group members to be their closest friends, the Johnsons were longing for something more.

To look at the outside shell of the Johnsons’ life, it would appear they have it all together, yet on the inside they are two of the statistically lonely people of whom George Gallup writes. Bob and Karen are just two of the millions of Americans who are searching to belong. Moreover, what is true of the Johnson family is intensified in the single-parent home. The activity for the adult parent is usually doubled, practically eliminating any time for the development of personal relationships. In addition, the single parent often has to burn a great deal of additional energy negotiating with the blended family members.

The single adult is not exempt from loneliness either. While more time can be allocated to enhancing adult relationships instead of managing children’s activities, the additional time still leaves them at home many hours feeling deeply alone. While there is usually an active group of acquaintances, most singles still long for a deeper companionship than what seems to be in their grasp. One of the most significant struggles for a single person living in suburban America is the lack of wholesome gathering spots for singles.The lack of access to community means that isolation rules.

The purpose of this book is to help people who feel like the Johnsons find what they are searching for—to help people discover a rich sense of community.To belong! In our journey of discovery, we will explore three obstacles that hinder our attainment of biblical community in America. Three comprehensive and practical solutions will be offered to overcome these obstacles; these solutions will be more specifically defined in the fifteen characteristics that must be present in order for community to be experienced. The promise of this book is that restructuring our lifestyles around these fifteen characteristics will fulfill our “search to belong” and give us the rich, enduring fellowship we were created by God to experience.

2: CREATED FOR COMMUNITY

A few years ago my wife and I finally cracked under the pleas of our children to add a dog to the family. We gave in after eleven years of begging. Two days before Christmas, we purchased a full-bred beagle puppy we named Lady. She had lived with us for about a year when we took a family vacation without her. The children were very concerned about the well-being of Lady while we were away and insisted that if we couldn’t take her with us that we get her the best possible accommodations. Through the help of another pet-obsessed friend, we located a place, The Pet Hotel—imagine that, a hotel for pets! This was the first I had ever heard of such a thing. Each pet is assigned an individual room. There is a television playing during the day for the dog to watch. The feedings are at precisely the time we offer them in her normal routine. The pets are actually walked and doted on more in The Pet Hotel than at home. This made the children feel better and made me feel a little poorer. (I have never been able to tell my father that I spent hard-earned money for an animal to stay in a pet hotel. For anyone born during the depression this would be an incomprehensible decision.)

The family returned home on a Friday night, too late to pick up Lady. So, the first order of business on Saturday was to head to The Pet Hotel. We gathered all her personal belongings, received a report ensuring us that they had done everything they promised, and paid the bill. When we got into the car, each of us eagerly petted Lady, genuinely happy to have her back. However, as we petted her, large clumps of hair clung to our hands. While I tried to convince the children that everything was okay, I was thoroughly concerned.

When we arrived home, I called the veterinarian in a panic. After I explained our dog’s symptoms upon picking her up from our seven-day vacation, the doctor told me that Lady was stressed by our absence; he suggested we spend about two hours with her at home, and then her hair would stick once again. I seriously doubted the prescription, but the thought of avoiding a visit to the vet after paying the pet hotel bill worked for me. I kid you not, within fifteen minutes of being with us in our home, we couldn’t pull a hair from Lady’s body. It was quite unbelievable. The doctor was right after all.

If a dog starts to fall apart after just seven days of being robbed of community, how much more is it true for humans, who are created in the image of God for fellowship? We were designed by God physically, emotionally, and spiritually to require community for our health. In The Gift of Touch, Helen Colton says that the hemoglobin in the blood increases significantly when we are touched (hemoglobin is the part of the blood that carries vital supplies of oxygen to the heart and brain). She concludes that if we want to be healthy, we must touch one another.¹

George Gallup Jr., referring to American isolationism, writes:

We are physically detached from each other. We change places of residence frequently. One survey revealed that seven in ten do not know their neighbors. As many as one-third of Americans admit to frequent periods of loneliness, which is a key factor in the high suicide rate among the elderly.²

All this is said to drive home the point that community is not a luxury but a necessity for life.

A NEW OPERATING PRINCIPLE

The first thing Bob and Karen need to do is agree on an essential belief, or truth, about life that is almost as basic as breathing: People need to be involved in meaningful and constant community or they will continue on indefinitely in a state of intense loneliness.

One of the underlying problems of the Johnsons and most people who live in the average American suburb (or international equivalent) is that they have too many worlds to manage. There are too many sets of relationships that do not connect with each other but all require time to maintain. Bob and Karen simply do not have enough time and energy to invest in each world of relationships in order to extract a sense of bel...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• DEDICATION
• CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• FOREWORD: BY LARRY CRABB
• FOREWORD: BY GEORGE GALLUP JR.
• FOREWORD: BY DALLAS WILLARD
• PREFACE: OPENING WORDS
• 1: THE LONELIEST NATION ON EARTH
• 2: CREATED FOR COMMUNITY
• PART 1: CONNECTING TO A COMMON PURPOSE
• PART 2: CONNECTING TO A COMMON PLACE
• PART 3: CONNECTING TO COMMON POSSESSIONS
• AFTERWORD
• APPENDIX: SPIRITUAL FORMATION CALENDAR
• NOTES
• ABOUT THE PUBLISHAER
• SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS