When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, "Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house." Luke 19:5

    Community - that is, relationships with other humans - is one of the scariest challenges we face. Every human on this earth is wounded and tends toward selfishness. All of us perceive ourselves, others and God wrongly in one way or another. This makes doing relationships difficult, frightening. It seems like the other person has so much power to hurt us. Yet, we are created for community, and good healthy community has tremendous power to heal.

    I think that, deep within, we all crave to be accepted and affirmed within a loving community. I think God created us this way. But fear of being hurt keeps us from embracing that kind of fellowship. Instead, we create highly organized, rule-controlled structures and call them church. This kind of fear-based controlling environment is not going to produce the freedom or safety people need in order to heal and grow.  

    Let’s look at how Jesus did community. First, He limited Himself to twelve people. The others he ministered to in a more general way or for one specific reason. He often sent the crowds away or sought to escape them. He developed an intimate relationship with His twelve. They knew Him, as best they could, and He knew them. He poured Himself into these twelve. When the time came, with the exception of Judas, they poured themselves into others. And so the Kingdom grew, one person influencing a few others by sharing the ups and downs of life as each one walked out their relationship with the Lord.

    In Luke 19, the story of Zaccheus, Jesus shows us the elements of good restorative community.         
    
        1. Pay attention to another. Jesus saw Zaccheus. He paid attention to him. Simply seeing and listening to another person brings healing.
        2. Lower yourself. Jesus went where Zaccheus lived. The Lord’s willingness to go to the house of this social outcast both raised the status of Zaccheus in the eyes of others and lowered the status of Jesus in the eyes of others.
        3. Include and accept. Jesus included Zaccheus and accepted him, without faultfinding, which ultimately led Zaccheus to repent of his wrong doings and desire to be a better person.
        4. Affirm. Jesus openly valued and affirmed Zaccheus.
        5. Legitimatize. Jesus gave Zaccheus an identity as a son of Abraham thus restoring him back to his community. People do not know that they are the image of God. Good community can give us back our identities.

    At the end of this picture lesson, Jesus said, "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost." Luke 19:10

    What was lost? Zaccheus. What restored him? Inclusive community.

    In The Pool, there are not many — ok, none — who are considered by the world to be very important. Many of us were abused as children, rejected by our families and peers. We still struggle with overcoming our childhood issues, our inner disharmony and misconceptions about God. But we have decided to work together toward a common goal. We want to express the Lord’s glory in the earth. We are trying to learn to include each other, accept each other, affirm each other — even during the times when we don’t like each other. We are trying to not control the other, to learn to honor and celebrate the other. In this way, we heal together, becoming one in Christ.

    Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his book Life Together, describes it well.
    
    "Thus the law of Christ is a law of bearing. Bearing means forbearing and sustaining. It is, first of all, the freedom of the other person ... that is a burden to the Christian. The other’s freedom collides with his own autonomy, yet he must recognize it. He could get rid of this burden by refusing the other person his freedom, by constraining him and thus doing violence to his personality, by stamping his own image upon him. But if he lets God create His image in him, he by this token gives him freedom and himself bears the burden of this freedom of another creature of God. The freedom of the other person includes all that we mean by a person’s nature, individuality, endowment. It also includes his weaknesses and oddities, which are such a trial to our patience, everything that produces frictions, conflicts, and collisions among us. To bear the burden of the other person means involvement with the created reality of the other, to accept and affirm it, and in bearing with it, to break through to the point where we take joy in it."

    Healthy community recreates the family that we need in order to mature successfully. There must be a commitment to walk with the other as long as the other is willing to walk with the community. This cannot be done in a large group or in a highly controlled small group. There must be warmth and freedom, laughter and tears, acceptance and honesty. Genuine spiritual leadership is more of eldership, guiding by example, offering love and acceptance, gentle course corrections, and creating a place of freedom within which the other can safely experiment, fail and grow.

    Are we doing that in The Pool? We’re trying and we’re learning. May God bless our efforts with His presence and His wisdom.

    I suggest you read by James G. Friesen, et al., The Life Model: Living From The Heart Jesus Gave You; Houses That Change The World by Wolfgang Simson; and Who Is Your Covering? by Frank Viola. I also recommend a visit to http://www.thrivetoday.org.