Crowd vs. Community

One of the things that I’m looking forward to in moving to Albany, is the opportunity to, once again, experience authentic Christian community.  It seems that in a small town, there would be fewer barriers.  One amazing thing we observed on our visit last month was that, after the Sunday morning assembly dismissed around 11:00 a.m., everyone went home – and came back at noon with their contributions to the church pot luck for the day.   Almost everyone lives within a few minutes drive of the church building, so those amazing casseroles can be kept warm at home.  I can’t imagine anything like that happening in Birmingham, or even some rural communities where I have lived.

Texas, like Alabama, is also football country.  Pardon my reverse culture shock, but I continue to be amazed by the millions of people who pack sports stadiums.  I know that it’s great fun and going to local sports events can be a good opportunity for involvement in the lives of people.  But there is a great difference between being swept along with a crowd and taking part in authentic community.  

I picked up a book called The Silent Life by Thomas Merton at a used book sale recently. Although he is writing about life in a monastery, I think his words are also appropriate for understanding what the church should be.  (Pardon the gender exclusive language, but the book was written in the 1950s.)

There is all the difference in the world between a community and a crowd.  A community is an organism whose common life is pitched on a somewhat higher tone than the life of the individual member.  A crowd is a mere aggregation in which the collective life is as low as the standards of the lowest units in the aggregation.  In entering a community, the individual sets himself the task of living above his own ordinary level, and thus perfecting his own being, living more fully, by his efforts to live for the benefit of others besides himself.  Descending into the crowd, the individual loses his personality and his character and perhaps even his moral dignity as a human being.  Contempt for the “crowd” is by no means contempt for mankind.  The crowd is below man.  The crowd devours the human that is in us to make us the members of a many-headed beast.

Now I don’t think this has a lot to say about whether or not we go to football games – but it may say something about why and with what attitude we go to them.  More importantly, it says something about why and with what attitude we are part of the church.  A church should be focused on building community, not a crowd.  Of course, the church is an open, inviting community, which thrives on the diversity of its members and on drawing others into its fellowship, but not at the expense of losing its essential identity as a community created by God’s Spirit to bear witness to his love, grace, and glory.