Where God Shows Himself

It hasn’t always been intentional, but I’ve stumbled into community with other guys  the entire time I’ve been walking with God. One group…then another. No surprise I wasn’t in community when I ‘ran off the rails’, if you know what I mean.

Bo’s Café is the fabulous book with which I start each Radical Mentoring Group. There are many of ‘takeaways’, but the one I carry and say almost every day is this….”No one ever gets fixed, but we can mature in community.” 

Maturity. Not acting on everything you know. Not saying everything you think. Self awareness. Self discipline. Peace in a storm. Rolling with the punches but standing up and throwing them at the right time and in the right direction. ‘Solid food’ over mother’s milk. Grace and Truth vs. ‘pie in the sky when you die’.

I’ve been on a C.S. Lewis roll lately. He shows up again…

“God can show Himself as He really is only to real men. And that means not simply to men who are individually good, but to men who are united together in a body, loving one another, helping one another, showing Him to one another” For that is what God meant humanity to be like….like players in one band or organs in one body. The one really adequate instrument for learning about God is the whole Christian community, waiting for Him together”.

There are three base motivations for ‘grouping up’ with other guys. First one is easy. “What’s in it for me?” What will I learn, who will I meet, will I belong, will they like me and listen to me….all about the big “I”. All about me.

Second one…more rare. “I want to be in a group so I can help”. Been there, done that. Hey, I’m older, wiser, connected, resourced, motivated to make a difference…to be useful. And why not? Seems good at first, but being ‘in community’ with other guys isn’t as much about being useful to each other as being valuable to each other. Same goes for church. I’m afraid we’ve carried our American “utilitarian” process-thinking into places it wasn’t meant to go. The New Testament’s overarching metaphor for community…for ‘the church’ isn’t an assembly line or a sports team. It’s the human body, where every part is valuable and all the parts are interdependent.

Think long and hard about this third reason. It’s huge. It’s the right reason to be in community. Valuable over useful. Belonging over behaving. Get at this and your whole ‘why’ for being in community will shift. I’m in community to value my ‘brothers’ and be valued by them. Not help them. Not fix them. To love them and let them love me. 

The most important thing God ever showed me was He loves me and I’m valuable to Him. He wants to show all of us, and community is His favorite way.

Question: Are you in authentic community with committed Christian men? Tell us why or why not here.