Human life is all about relationship, even at its most basic level. Even many of the animals are designed for relationship, a lifelong relationship. You and I are designed for even deeper relationship than the animals.
We are intended for a more committed life than the animals that mate for life. We are intended for a life that is deliberate and sentient. We commit on the basis of love and life more than need for perpetuity as do the animals. Granted we are more complicated than the animals, there is always exceptions, life and like can always be usurped by a need which can be a mistake.
We are more than the sum of our reproductive processes; we are body, soul and spirit, even in the natural level. But we were intended for more than this. We were designed for relationship with God and we express that by our desires to associate with others outside our immediate or extended family.
This is where we experience “Church”. The Greek word for church is most often translated by the concept of ”community”. Even the word “religion” in Greek has the idea of community where people are bound together. If you didn’t notice I have not mentioned God in this paragraph. That is because both words have a life application. The idea of community is that of a group of people gathering together “for a common reason. Religion likewise is more like the binding together of a club or group under the rules of the club.
Essentially this is the definition of the Church, an association of people of like mind that is drawn together by Jesus and shaped by the rules of the association “their beliefs”. The Church that loses its primary focus of relationship with Jesus crosses into the rule of religion.
We each need to remember that it is by our relationship that we have life and only by that. If we let our focus become taken from the Master then we contribute to the corruption of what many Churches have become – sterile social clubs shaped by their beliefs not by their Lord.
Sometimes it is the thing to do to move from one Church to another to stay connected to an active Community of Faith. But this is not always the case, Jesus can use us even in the driest environments. If we can maintain our relationship with Jesus the Christ He can enable us to encourage and draw others back to Him when it may seem that all have left their first love.
I have heard of people who have “left the church to save their faith” and have to accept that there are occasions where the situation may be so bad that this may be so. The environment may be so toxic or so blasé that a person needs to find a fellowship elsewhere. Alternatively, there may be a wound from some event in the fellowship so bad that the individual feels compelled to flee. These events no doubt do happen and sometimes a person may find another fellowship in which he can be an active member but we need to be convinced before we take that step.
I claim no direct insight into these issues. I know it is not always easy living in a Church community and there are times when cutting seems the solution but beware least it is the easy way to separate you from the people who provide your support. Ultimately the Bible is God’s word of truth and it says the following.
My dear friends, if you know people who have wandered off from God's truth, don't write them off. Go after them. Get them back and you will have rescued precious lives from destruction and prevented an epidemic of wandering away from God. James 5:19-20
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