14. CORRECTING MY IMAGE OF MYSELF REQUIRES A LOVING COMMUNITY.
(Before looking at the questions below, take a few minutes to think about this statement. Invite Jesus to speak to you about what He would like you to notice.)
IF "COMMUNITY" IS A GROUP OF PEOPLE, SMALL ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE TO KNOW AND BE KNOWN BY EACH PERSON, THEN WHO IS YOUR COMMUNITY? FAMILY, FRIENDS, SMALL GROUP?
IF YOU CONSIDER THE NATURE OF YOUR COMMUNITY, HOW DOES IT HELP YOU CONNECT WITH JESUS?
HOW DOES IT ENCOURAGE YOU, SHAPE YOU, CORRECT YOU, AND HELP YOU BECOME A BETTER PERSON?
IF YOUR COMMUNITY IS NOT ONE THAT "BUILDS YOU UP," WHAT MIGHT YOU CONSIDER DOING?
WHAT DO YOU SENSE GOD IS SAYING TO YOU ABOUT THIS?
Well-known Christian counselor Larry Crabb wrote about a significant shift in his thinking. In recent days, I have made a shift. I am now working toward the day when communities of God's people, ordinary Christians whose lives regularly intersect, will accomplish most of the good that we now depend on mental health professionals to provide. And they will do it by connecting with each other in ways that only the gospel makes possible. (Crabb, Larry. Connecting: Healing for Ourselves and Our Relationships. Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.)
Crabb was a clinical counselor who wrote about emotional health and led academic counseling programs. With all his training in counseling, he concluded that Christian community may be a better way to emotional health than counseling. Crabb published Connecting in 1997. Years later, neuroscience research is confirming what Crabb said. Loving and healthy regular relationships are a key to emotional health.
A major component of emotional health is one's image of themselves. It is only in healthy, loving relationships that our broken self-esteem can be healed. Other people can help me to believe that I am worthy of love. They can show me that I have a legitimate place in the universe. By the way they treat me, they let me see that I am deserving of respect and compassion. Their interaction with me helps me see that I have value and usefulness.
A healthy Christian community provides the foundations of what we need to live well and flourish. Our culture and our inner skeptic continually challenge that flourishing. Living under such judgment makes it difficult to sustain a positive image of ourselves. That's why we need community. Healthy relationships can develop in loving spiritual communities. And relationships are the space where we experience love and healing.
It seems that Jesus understood this in his earthly ministry. Jesus was intelligent and strategic. He knew how important it was to create a healthy spiritual community. Maybe that's why he spent so much of his energy in creating it. In his recent book, The Kingdom Among Us, Michael Steward Robb discusses Dallas Willard's perspective on the kingdom of God. "Without discounting all that might have been going on behind the scenes, Willard emphasizes that the historical life of Jesus primarily resulted in the whole life transformation of a small group of fewer than one hundred Jews" (Fortress Press. Kindle Edition).
Certainly, the cross was part of Jesus' mission on earth. But creating a prototype community that would meet the spiritual and emotional needs of its participants was also part of Jesus' work. Jesus's followers are transformed in these communities. We can see the power of a Jesus-indwelled community to bring wholeness, healing, and a true sense of the way God values us.