some notes

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted anything on here. Some say silence is golden...I say not always. Especially when you're waiting. Being patient is ridiculous...as in it can be incredibly difficult. Anyhow, I have some notes from a sermon on community...if I haven't said this before..Community is incredibly important. If you don't really have any solid community, I can relate because I've been there. But in the same breathe I'm telling you to get some...how you say?? Well part of being a part of a church is not only to go for teaching, but to be amongst other believers, and hence, a place to create community. Also, if you don't have any community where you're living, I'd say you're responsible for going out and finding some. This may require you stepping out of your comfort zone...BIG DEAL! Not that the church is the only place, but it is indeed a place to start.

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Purpose Through People – purpose comes through community

Book of Ecclesiastes

To know God--purpose of life
Living everyday with the end in mind. To imagine it's the last day you could live. To make the most of life, to maximize life, to prioritize life, to recognize life.

A part of a purpose driven life is to live with a sense of community in your life. God created you for community. God built you to belong and formed you to fit into some kind of family network. A significant part of your purpose in life is to develop relationships with others. God never intended for you to live your life in isolation.

We're living in a world that is becoming increasingly relationally disconnected. Since the conclusion of WWII isolationism has been on a steady increase. Technology progresses, community tends to digress. We're becoming an impersonal, faceless society. Isolationism...it's fast becoming the social epidemic of our culture. God never created us for isolation. He created us and designed us to be in community with each other.

Rick Warren: " We are created for community, fashioned for fellowship, and formed for a family, and none of us can fulfill God's purposes by ourselves."

We all have an innate desire to connect and establish a sense of community. (to be with people, to want to develop friendships, and some closeness) When it's not there, people know it and they long for it.

Without a community where we know, explore, discover and touch one another, we experience isolation and despair that drives us in a wrong direction that corrupts our efforts to live meaningfully and love well.

The word "together" is one of the clearly repetitious words in the book of Acts. Sixty percent of the New Testament church activity was social. It revolved around being with people. When we fail to develop meaningful community we miss out on one the most essential God-given purposes for life: people. God created us with the intent of building community with others. When we fail to do that there are many negative side-effects.

Genesis 2:18a...it's not good for the man to be alone. It's not healthy for us to be isolated or lone rangers.

A purpose driven life always makes time for people.

Benefits of building community:
- Success: it's virtually impossible to attain your God-given redemptive potential as a person without involving other people in your life.
- Support: people provide us support. It's critically important to have a network of support. Especially in times of need.