“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
Ahh community.
Isn’t it just heartwarming to read this passage in Acts, imagining what kind of rich community the early church shared? The kind of life with no attachments, where everything is shared and everyone is cared for. Eating together and praying together and living together. A life of total dependency on each other. You scratch my back, I scratch yours.
Well, times like ours are a little different. We live in our own houses, cook our own meals, attend church for a couple hours a week before retreating back home, and rarely ask for help except for in emergencies. “Church” has more to do with a physical building than a spiritual family. Personal back scratchers can be bought in the lobby bookstore.
The lifestyle of the early church community seems so promising. But how to apply those ideals today? Many churches attempt to mix aspects of community living into their culturally-sensitive services, though sometimes uncomfortably. Sharing belongings with each other now translates to “sharing emotional belongings”, in an attempt to try and bridge the gap between each other’s spiritual lives without invading too much on personal space. The American Dream, somehow, is almost interwoven into the doctrine of the American church – save 10% for the church and for those in need, but thrive on the rest. Denominations split us up, worship styles we don’t approve of cause our hearts to harden, and church has more to do with pouring in than pouring out.
In this rapid-pace, self-focused, self-reliant culture, is the early church model even still possible?
Well, forgive me for chuckling as I write this. Because as much as I think my answer is “no”, the truth of the matter is that I’ve actually been living the early church model for the last nine months. And as possible as it is to implement, living life in constant community is a lot harder, more frustrating, and more exhausting than the blissfully romantic depiction Acts 2 seems to illustrate.
I will admit, the idea of living in deep community sounded enticing when I first joined the World Race. At training camp, Adventures in Missions staff drilled into us the importance of engaging in deep community within our teams. It wouldn’t just be enough to be paired with six other strangers just for ministry; we would be responsible for caring for each other throughout the rigors of the eleven months. Keeping a healthy team is vital, because life on the Race requires living in the same place (and sometimes in the same bed) with six other pseudo-strangers, sharing tight spaces, eating every meal together, entertaining each other, doing ministry together, and rarely ever doing anything alone; living in an unhealthy community would not only affect your personal well-being, but also every aspect of your life on the field. Nightly team meetings, or “team times”, are required for each team for the purposes of establishing good communication and building up healthy community. Feedback, the infamous World Race “F-Word”, is heavily recommended for each team as a nightly activity, as a way for each team mate to call each other higher in areas where the other might be blind or need correction. Adventures in Missions believes in the Acts 2 church model, and seeks to build that kind of community in each team through proper implementation of feedback and team time. And really, I don’t think many people were turned off by that at first.
Month One in particular, I remember loving my community. Every night, my team would eat dinner together, laugh about the events of the day, and eventually segue into a card game or movie night for team bonding. Some nights, we would have worship; other nights we would study the Bible. We would open up the floor for people to offer feedback for other teammates, but mostly, nobody seemed to have anything too concerning to bring up. Weekends were filled with adventure and exploration, and ministry time together was filled with story-telling and word games. Spontaneous dance parties and inside jokes became a norm. Month One in Community was blissful; simple; perfect. It was exactly what I wanted it to be, and for the first time, I started to believe that the Acts 2 church could really be possible.
Month Two came, and things started to shift. With a new location and new ministry came new perspective and new challenges. Certain card games started to get old, team time got more casual, and the urgency to go deep in Bible study started to diminish with the better understanding of how much time is still left ahead. World Race life was starting to become less like a crazy vacation, and more like normal life.
By Month Three, our team started to fall into new struggles. Disillusionment with the Race. Disagreements between teammates. Friendships forming and people being left behind. Homesickness. Fatigue. Confusion. We met as a team nightly, but still sensed rifts between us as we each started to walk our own paths through the Race. Sure, we still lived alongside each other, but more and more the focus redirected itself back to our individual needs and purposes. We still liked each other a lot, but probably would have been fine to limit our time together only to the evenings.
By the end of Month Four, our leadership decided to split all of the teams up to make way for new team assignments going into our next continent. Our team said our goodbyes, shared final thoughts and encouragements, and shed some tears over the loss of our church body that we had come to love. Eagerly we awaited the announcement of our new teams, hopeful for a change of community that would inspire new growth and fresh perspective, while also trying to fight the nagging fear of potential catastrophe. Would my next team understand me? Will I get along with any of them? Will we really work together well? Even though the announcement of new teams only presented a reality that would need to be embraced for a short amount of time, it held the kind of weight of an upcoming marriage – “I better like these people, because I’m going to be seeing them every second for the next three months!”
Since the beginning of the Race, I’ve been on three different teams – two co-ed teams and one all-guys team. Each team has had a different spirit, a different flow, and a different perspective. Some teammates I got to know really well, and others I still feel like I barely know. Some teammates loved spending time together as a team; other teammates loved their alone time. Some teams thrived in certain ministries; other teams struggled through certain months. Some teams have been purely blissful to live with; others have made me want to pull my hair out. Across the last nine months of living in community, not one has looked the same as the other.
I guess I thought I understood what this kind of community would be like, mostly because I thought I had already lived it. Sure, I’d be living in the same places as the people I minister with, but hadn’t I already kind of done that before? I’ve had friend groups before, people who I congregated with for fun adventures, prayer and worship, and individual council – friends who I saw a lot across school, church, and home. I thought that joining into a small community would feel just like that. But as I learned pretty quickly, spiritual community on the World Race is a much different animal than anything I’ve experienced before.
There’s a couple of particular challenges that every Racer is met with going into a World Race team.
First, the team is chosen for you – a community hand selected by outside observers. This can be challenging, because often times the leadership assembles teams based on the little understanding they’ve gathered of individuals’ personality strengths at training camp. Very quick assumptions and a whole lot of prayer come together to form small families that may or may not connect well. Often times, leadership will mix personality types into one team, so that introverts and extroverts can influence each other. While this approach offers the opportunity to grow from working with different personality types, it can be increasingly difficult to live with one another 24/7, trying to understand each other’s perspective and basic needs.
Second, the team is only as strong as its weakest link. Meaning, if one person is struggling or falling behind, it becomes very hard to keep pushing into ministry. If someone is having a bad day, most often that person’s attitude affects the atmosphere of the team. If two people are having a disagreement, it becomes increasingly evident when in small spaces. And especially in ministry, if half the team is on fire for what God is doing, and the other half is just struggling to get through the day, it becomes almost impossible to move in the same direction together. Some people have specific giftings that others don’t have, and as encouraging as it can be to be leading the team in something you’re gifted in, it can also be aggressively frustrating trying to do certain things that only you lack skills in (shoutout to construction ministry!).
Third, everyone is coming from very, VERY different places in life. Most surprisingly, not everyone comes into the Race for the same reason, and not everyone is wanting to finish the Race for the same reason. Some people come on the Race feeling personally called to missions, some just are coming for the adventure and the experience, and others simply come on the Race because they were at a roadblock in their faith and didn’t know what else to do. While it might seem that everyone on your team is there to bring the Kingdom of God into that community, the truth is that not everyone approaches that the same way. I’m personally passionate about prayer walking, healing miracles, and being Holy Spirit led, but I quickly became frustrated when I realized that the people on my team approached ministry with a passion for discipleship, relationship building, and meeting physical needs. At first, I thought that my team just wasn’t that passionate about the Lord, but I soon realized that there were more ways the Lord could use me than the ones I was most passionate about.
I’ve faced a lot of challenges this past year on the Race, but honestly, the hardest challenges have been within my team. Why? Because I didn’t choose this community. For most of my life, I’ve decided who my friends would be, and what kind of community I wanted to be a part of. Most of the communities I’ve been a part of have held the same values and interests that I have; on the Race, the most I have in common with a lot of my teammates is that we love Jesus. To be in a church community with people who are relatively different from you is totally fine, but to be in a deep community with people who might not completely understand you, it can be really easy to feel alone or misunderstood. As much as I love and value the 42 others on my Squad, there’s been many seasons where my community on the Race just can’t fill the gap that my community back home can.
This World Race life is not real life. There are so many factors of this trip are out of my control, and so much of this experience is meant to stretch me instead of reinforce my comfort zones. In my normal life, I’m not going to be sleeping two feet from three different people. I won’t be having to have team time and feedback sessions every night. I won’t likely even be living with the same people I work with. In my life back home, there’s a divide between my home and my work life; on the Race, it’s all the same.
Very little about this lifestyle of deep community is normal. So why did God intend for us to live like this? What is the purpose of living in such dependency to one another, when this world makes it so easy to be self-sufficient? What is there to gain from it all?
I came into my first team excited for the possibility of getting to be that unified body of Christ, a mini-“church”, loving people and loving God together. I thought that I was going to be a great fit for any team because of how selfless I was (funny how writing that out makes it sound so convincing…). Well naturally, living with a team has shown me how self-focused I can be. And realizing that, and trying to break myself of that, has been the hardest part of this whole World Race experience.
Because I’m really good at taking care of myself. I’m good at entertaining myself for hours on end. I’m good at walking into ministry, trusting in my abilities. I’m good at adapting to new circumstances, and dealing with various emotions and spiritual battles in private. I’m good at setting goals and taking steps to accomplish them. I’m good at staying positive, finding the good in hard circumstances, and choosing to keep going. If I wanted to, I could do this whole World Race experience on my own, and probably survive.
But in community, I’ve learned to thrive. I’ve learned the importance of listening and understanding instead of assuming. I’ve learned that sometimes, my initial judgments are incorrect. I’ve learned that I often overlook critical ways in which I can serve people instead of being a burden to them (…like remembering to take out the trash or wash my dishes…). I’ve learned to grow through the influence of others who have different giftings that I might not have. I’ve learned to listen to advice from others, even those who have a very different perspective on things than I do. I’ve learned to trust God through entrusting others with things I know I could do myself. I’ve learned to be vulnerable in moments where I needed prayer, even when it was embarrassing. I’ve learned to walk slower in the moments where I want to run ahead, so that everyone on the team is able to serve together. I’ve learned how to choose into relationships even when everything seems hopeless. I’ve learned how to lead by example, and how to follow the example of others. I’ve learned to see new ways to serve and love others. I’ve learned to keep my opinions quiet and release control so that others can have the opportunity to grow.
Most importantly, I’ve learned it’s never about chalking up victories for yourself. It’s about celebrating the victories that were accomplished together – in community with each other, and in union with the Spirit of God. Because all of the things that God has done me and through me haven’t happened because I’ve done this Race on my own. They’ve happened because I’ve spent a year living in deep relationship with a crazy, fiery, smelly, adventurous, passionate group of World Racers. They happened because I lived in community.
In this age, community is possible. Even if it seems hard, or unrealistic, or uncomfortable – keep digging. In your churches, there are people who want to grow but don’t know what steps they need to take. Maybe that’s you. Maybe you’re loving your relationship with God, but you feel like you’re still missing something.
Choose community.
Find a group of people, get together for prayer and Bible study weekly. Connect with total strangers, or people you don’t understand, get to know them – they are just as much a part of the Body of Christ as you are! Grab coffee with people who have differing opinions from you. Let yourself be discipled, let yourself be teachable, and let yourself be stretched. Take care of people who are hurting in your church, and show them you care about them by going deep with them. Don’t run from conflict, but press into it, believing that there is something the Lord wants to teach you through it all.
Community won’t happen unless you choose it. And sometimes, choosing it is hard – believe me, I’ve had to choose it more times than I’ve wanted to. But believe me, despite all of the challenges, there’s one thing that nine months on this crazy World Race has taught me.
It is worth it.
“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers,to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up,until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” Ephesians 4:11-13
