Perfect Community is always Imperfect

Today a friend asked me, "What is community supposed to look like?"

A simple question right?  But it made me pause and reflect...

Part of me wanted to give the "idealistic community" view--the kind of community where everyone is in perfect unity all the time, and there is overflowing joy, and never any tension or hurt!  A community where everyone has "arrived"!  But then it struck me--that's a load of _________. (fill in the blank)  Who has ever experienced THAT kind of community here on earth?

Now, in some ways I long for that kind of community; and yet the more I live in community with others the more I realize that surely that kind of community will NOT be seen in this life.  And I actually think that's a good thing!

It's a good thing because if that kind of community existed I would be disqualified!  And don't kid yourself, so would you!

It doesn't take much honest self-reflection to realize that I can be a bit of a bugger sometimes.  Just tonight I had some close friends over and I know I wasn't the best host--I was "off" and a bit grumpy.  I'd tell you I had a long day, but that's just an excuse and a good friend has told me: "that any excuse no matter how valid only weakens the character!"  So no excuses...(Thanks to my friends who still love me and put up with me!)

So what's the point?  The point is we need to embrace the imperfectness of the perfect community.  In doing so we will embrace others just like us who too often feel like they struggle alone with their imperfections.  People on a journey...We are all in progress...sometimes further along, sometimes further behind.

I think the Church has often gotten mixed up about what the "perfect community" should look like.  The problem comes with a misunderstanding of timing.  Because the Church IS called to be perfect and the Bride of Christ without spot or blemish.  But we forget that this will be an ongoing process throughout History and only fully accomplished when Jesus comes for His Bride.

For the time being, the church community cannot be perfect or else none of us can be a part of it--but it does need to be a place of love, gentleness, patience and humility and Truth as we together grow towards the goal of perfect unity in Jesus.  We are all a people in progress.

The moment that the church community becomes too perfect to embrace the imperfect person is the moment we have truly lost the plot.

"I did not come for the righteous, but for the sinner."  --Jesus (Mark 2:17)