Being made One

Over the last few months, our church has made the idea of “oneness” a unifying theme for our community and family of faith.  Upon becoming one we have worshipped together, shared meals together, played games together, and, yes, we have even hunted eggs together. As a result, our Kingdom community is being built and family ties are forming from week to week. For the average participant in a typical team building exercise or unifying endeavor, the adage goes, “practice makes perfect.” So one might think that the more we interact, the closer we will grow and as a result unity will flow out of the spiritual bonds that are formed. But Christ’s Church is not just a social community or team of which to show solidarity. Our family requires something deeper to draw us together.

            In his book Life Together Dietrich Bonhoeffer offers a few words to this effect. He states:

One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self- infatuation and despair. Let him who cannot be alone be aware of community. Let him who is not in community be aware of being alone. Along with the day of the Christian family fellowship together there goes the lonely day of the individual. This is as it should be. The day together will be unfruitful without the day alone, both for the fellowship and for the individual.

Bonhoeffer is saying that we cannot function properly in Christian fellowship without periods of solitude, specifically in prayer with our Heavenly Father. For the Christian, right speech and right fellowship are actually formed in the quiet times of reflective prayer and meditation. “Practice makes perfect” only when our relationships with one another flow out of THE relationship we have with the Father, facilitated most intimately by prayer.

            As a result I must ask myself, when was the last time I spent time with God like my family depended on it? What if my time with the Father was as sweet as my time with my wife or closest friend? How much closer could I be to my church community if my prayer life was at the forefront of all I do? This week, let’s take some time to prayerfully reflect on these questions as we journey in faith together.

In Christ,

John Bennett