Community: Icing or Cake?

By Brad House

 

Perspective is often limited by experience. Have you ever had an experience that opened your eyes to what you have been missing? For me, it was sushi. I can't believe I went over thirty years before discovering this perfection of Japanese fast food. Sushi, however, is not a necessity of life; it is simply "icing on the cake." But that begs the question, what then is the cake? In our lives we often settle for lesser things because we are unaware that there is more to life. Sometimes we settle for cake without icing; sometimes we even settle for less than cake.

 

C.S. Lewis observes our propensity to settling for the false promises of sin because we have never experienced the joys of Jesus. In his book The Weight of Glory he says:

"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

 

What struck me about Lewis' point was that he was not suggesting that making mud pies was normal and that going to the beach was icing on the cake. Life through Jesus is the baseline for normal. Life with Jesus is the cake! In other words, when we choose not to follow Jesus, we choose less than life. In  Ephesians 2:5 Paul makes it clear that apart from Jesus, we were dead–not simply missing out on some icing.

 

This was bouncing around my head as I was thinking about the 40% of people at our church  who choose not to attend a Community Group. I have been offered many explanations on why someone is making this decision during this point in their life. Most of these point to an understanding of community as icing on the Christianity cake–seeing it as a bonus to the Christian life rather than essential to it.

 

This is a fundamental mistake. Life in community is essential to being a Christian. We are created in the image of God who himself exists in community. We are relational beings intended for community. Through community we are sanctified and image the Trinitarian nature of God. This isn't icing. This is the eggs and sugar that combine with the salvation through Jesus to make up the cake of Christian life. Normal is life in Jesus lived out in the community of the church. When we choose to go it alone, we are choosing to subtract from the Christian life.

 

Don't subtract from your walk with Jesus. Community is a gift of God for your joy and His glory. I want you to experience the fullness of life in Jesus. Join a Community Group today and have your cake and eat it, too.