I book I was reading yesterday quoted an author who said, ‘There is no such thing as individual Christians.’ I found this a shocking statement, yet I really wasn’t that shocked by it. Basically the idea is that we really can’t have a ‘personal’ relationship with God. We talk about that idea a lot in Church. But really what he means is that our life always involves other people. We need to be in community so badly that we really can’t be Christians and be by ourselves. Something about that just felt right…
Do you think we can be Christians alone?
Certainly the spiritual growth in my life has been largely due to the influence of godly people in my life and having friends to process my faith with. Some of the greatest influence is watching others live out their faith, and that they are open enough about their lives and faith that you can see it happening. That’s the kind of thing that happens in community. We had a great discussion about this last night at House Church.
I thought about this a lot since you brought it up at youth last night. At first I was like, well of course you could be a Christian without others because your relationship with God is just between you and Him. But then as I was thinking about my relationship with God, I began to think of all the special moments of my life that brought me so much closer to Christ and deepend my relationship with him, and every single one of them involved other Christians in one way or another. I realized that even if it would’ve been possible for me to be a Christian by myself, it wouldn’t have been as effective or as awesome as it is with other people.