I can summarize my third year in youth ministry with one word: exhaustion. I gave my time, resources, and energy to one goal: creating a space where students wanted to be. If a student decided not to attend an event, I saw that as a direct reflection of my leadership.
I learned the hard way that the longing my students had for community would never come through friendship alone. The reality is that our students do not simply want community; they need it. Yet they don’t need our manufactured versions. Our students need the community of the church the way God created it.
Scripture makes it clear that a central part of our relationship with God is our relationship with his people. Christianity, by its very nature, is communal. Yet, so many of us want to treat our discipleship as a solo project.
By God’s grace, I learned what Biblical community looks like. As I shared what I was learning, our students began to see it as more than what they have. They saw it as who they are. Here are the two things to consider as you teach on Biblical community: 1) the Biblical foundation for community and 2) the practical implications of community in our youth ministries.
Defining Community
Before we can convince our students of their need for Biblical community, we must define what we mean. The Bible offers more than a simple definition. It gives us a beautiful story — the story of the community God created us in and for.
When it comes to the story of community in the Scripture, I like to break it into two parts. First, the Old Testament tells us the story of how we destroyed community by breaking of God’s design in our disobedience. Next, the New Testament tells us the story of how Christ restored community through the breaking of his body in perfect obedience.
Before we can fully understand the beauty of the restored community we have in Christ, we need to see the genesis of community in God’s creation. To do this, we must take a journey through the first eleven chapters of the Bible.
Community Before The Fall
Starting with Genesis 1 and 2, we see the first-ever glimpse of community in the Scripture, found in God himself. God is — and has always been — three-in-one. This is to say, he is one God who exists eternally in three persons.
It is pivotal for students to grasp this truth first. It is the very foundation for why we, as God’s image bearers, need community. If God has always existed in perfect community with himself as Father, Son, and Spirit, then community is a part of our status as image bearers. This means we bear the image of God not just in our own bodies, but in our relationships to one another as male/female, parent/child, brother/sister.
This is also the answer for why we feel it so acutely when we are not living in community with others or when we experience broken community. The effect is significant because the intention is significant. The degree to which something is integral to our experience as image bearers is the degree to which we will experience the pain of its brokenness.
So, if God created us for community, then why can it be so hard? This is when we continue in our story, turning to Genesis 3.
Community After The Fall
One of the divine realities broken by the effect of sin in the Fall was the community we experience with others, as represented in the curse between man and woman (Gen. 3:16). Even more so, the Fall broke the community between man and God, as represented in Adam and Eve’s removal from the garden (Gen 3:23-24)
Yet, this was not the end. A quick journey through Genesis 4-11 will show us even more repercussions of the Fall.
- Genesis 4: Cain and Abel represent broken community within families.
- Genesis 6: Violence and corruption instead of harmony and cultivating represent the broken community in culture/society.
- Genesis 11: The Tower of Babel represents broken community among the nations.
Jesus Restores Our Community
If the Old Testament gives us the story of how sin destroyed the original design for community, then the New Testament gives us the story of how Jesus’s redemption restores it.
Jesus restores our community by reconciling us back into our intended place within the family of God. Isolation is often our response to sin, meaning that community should be our response to redemption. It is in Jesus alone that we see the restoration of community because it is in Jesus alone that the curse of sin is broken.
Biblical community is not about friendship, Biblical community is about family (Psa. 68:6).
Jesus, the first born among many brothers, came to restore our community with God and bring us back into our position as sons and daughters. This is why, in the New Testament, the most common name used in reference to God is “Father.”
This is also what makes Biblical community so unique from anything our students can find in this world. Because of Jesus, true community is not built on who we are, but on who he is. It is not merely significant, but eternal.
The Practical Implications of Biblical Community
What does all this mean then? If Christ has restored our community, then what does it look like in our youth ministries? In his book Community, Brad House defines it this way: “I endeavor to affirm community as a gift of God’s grace for the purpose of exalting the Son and making Him known. In other words, community is not about us; it is about God. Community is an instrument of worship, a weapon against sin, and a tool for evangelism all for the exaltation of Jesus.”
I love this definition because it offers us a three-fold framework through which we can view our pursuit of Biblical community in our youth ministries. It is 1) an instrument of worship, 2) a weapon against sin, and 3) a tool for evangelism.
Instrument of Worship
If community is one of the ways we bear the image of God, then the aim of community among our students must be to glorify God. As our students gather, the foremost goal must always be that they would see God and glorify him. If our games or activities or even lessons do not point toward this goal, then we should reconsider them. Every gathering should function as an signpost pointing people to God.
Weapon Against Sin
It is in the sharing of our faith — our community — that we can find the fullness of every good thing God has promised us in Christ (Phm. 1:6). As our students seek to battle sin and the effects of brokenness in this world, our community should be the place that both welcomes confession and commits to partner with them in the battle. We must wage this war within our communities. It is through Biblical community that our students will know the power of the Spirit as others pray over them and walk beside them to take hold of every promise of God in Christ on their behalf.
Tool for Evangelism
Our love for one another, as believers, is the most compelling apologetic we offer to a lost world (John 13:34-35). As our students learn to love one another despite their differences, the world (i.e. their schools, sports teams, neighbors, etc.) will see a community unlike any the culture could ever offer. It is in that love for one another (that hard fought, not manufactured love) that the world, and our students, will see the beauty of God on display.
My prayer for us all is that we stop trying to create the community we think our students want, and instead, start teaching them about the community they need: a community built on the foundation of Christ alone.
Yearning for community as you labor in ministry? Consider joining one of Rooted’s Mentorship Programs!
