This article talks about how to keep the church community flourishing. In order for you to gauge if it is flourishing, read here.

“We need not sow thistles and brambles; they come up naturally enough, because they are indigenous to earth: and so, we need not teach men to complain; they complain fast enough without any education. But the precious things of the earth must be cultivated.” 

—Charles Spurgeon

We have previously compared cultivating church community to the working of a garden and talked about how what we choose to grow flourishes. However, in gardens, weeds and brambles are so prolific that they just come up naturally where we don’t want them to. This is the same as relational thorns that seem to spring up easily in a community.

This is because all of us are works in progress, and our sinful tendencies and selfish ways sometimes get the better of us. Weeds like exclusivity, toxic friendships, coarse joking, and isolation threaten to break the relationship apart.

It is important that each of us contribute to protecting the fellowship with other believers.

Guarding Church Community

What can we do to keep the church community thriving?

1. Clarify the vision.

A clear vision helps us focus on what matters and avoid confusion or distractions. Followers of Christ who grow deeper in their relationship with God build up inside them a zeal for His honor. But without a direction to pour their zeal into, they are like loose cannons, throwing their lives into everything they see to the point of exhaustion. If the vision is clear, people can better channel their energy towards advancing God’s kingdom.

A clear vision helps us avoid divisiveness. When we are laser-focused on what God calls us to do as a community, we avoid looking at each other’s faults and taking offense at each other’s actions. We understand what to prioritize: loving God and loving others. We therefore protect these relationships at all costs.

In Every Nation, we are called to honor God and establish Christ-centered, Spirit-empowered, socially responsible churches and campus ministries in every nation. Is this clear to the students who are taking the lead in our campus ministries? 

2. Establish our values.

Our values are like walls that guard the vision. What are our values as a movement?

• The Lordship of Jesus Christ protects our fellowship from liberalism and legalism. Our foundation is God’s word and therefore, it forms our convictions and grounds us in eternal truth, not in the current philosophical trend or flimsy arguments and opinions.
• Evangelism and discipleship keep our passion for those who have yet to follow Jesus Christ burning. Friendships grounded in love for God and for others become different from self-seeking relationships that can become exclusive, toxic, or even abusive.
• Leadership development guards our fellowship from mediocrity and complacency, knowing that we need to keep raising leaders from among the next generation in order to truly make an impact in society. Do we give the next generation opportunities to lead so that they can succeed even in small things and, if ever, fail with grace?
• Family is the validation of our ministry. Valuing family grows a students’ compassion for their family members and encourages them to honor their parents. It emphasizes that we embrace sharing life together, reject disposable relationships, and choose to walk in love and unity. It also gives them a vision for the kind of family they would want to raise someday—a family that would make an impact in their community as they seek to honor God.

Flourishing and fruitfulness were originally mandated to Adam so that in everything he and his family do, they would promote and protect life as God designed it. The Church has received the same commission. Our fellowships are designed to fulfill what the word has proclaimed:

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”

Revelations 11:15

May we each do our part in responding to God’s call for us as a movement and as part of the body of Christ.