Why leaving the church for home groups is attractive

Our common desire and need for community.

David Clark (To Know and Love God, Crossway Books, 2003) writes:
“People in some local churches do not experience much true community. Authentic community goes beyond the superficial 'Hello' on Sunday morning. In true community, each person loves and is unconditionally loved. Each one knows others and is authentically known.
“Experiencing community is the felling of finding a social home. This does not require a formal organization. It is more a way of living together” (247).
Yet, the danger is that we cannot substitute “dominantly horizontal human connections for vertical relationships with God.” Church is not to be a therapeutic culture. While church community “requires mutuality and service,” it “does not entail a complete leveling of all functions and roles. It is possible for leaderless groups to lack community” and “well-led groups to experience significant community” (248). 

Let us build genuine community within our local churches.  We needn't substitute an unbiblical kind of small group for the NT model of church to do this.  We need only to learn how to better love each other, to care for one another, to concern ourselves for the growth of those around us, and to make certain our own hearts are continuing to be transformed by the preaching of the Word from the pulpit and the leadership of those over us. 

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