In June of the year 2000, Robert Putnam published Bowling Alone. As the subtitle stated clearly, the book was about “The Collapse and Revival of American Community.” Unfortunately for Dr. Putnam, in many respects, the book’s success was on the collapse part because, 16 years later, the revival part has failed to materialize. In fact, in his 2015 book Our Kids, Putnam in essence admits that our national crisis that he describes in the book is largely a failure of community. The community that used to protect and care for “our kids” now no longer does. Or can.
For the past twenty years, I have been reading about, teaching about and living out the ideas of community. At the time in 1996 I didn’t really use the term “community” nor did I necessarily see the dearth of community focused ideas or institutions. I was the youth pastor for First Baptist Church of Winter Park Florida and simply focusing on loving the students in our mix. When I started, the youth group was about 20-25 kids. Two years later after employing various concepts designed to build a focus on caring for one another…in other words, building community, the group was over 50 students, plus another 10-15 active College students.
When, in 1998, my wife and I set out to start the ministry that would become Numinous (my communication ministry and eventually a functioning church), we were eager to see how God was moving in other places. I took a fact-finding trip to England and visited other church leaders in Seattle, one of the few places in the USA that seemed to be experiencing success in touching the lives of the young adults of the time. It was clear in both England, Seattle and other places that the key was not in styles of music, dress codes or not, or types of services offered.
Nope…the key was a focus on people, on the “one another” aspect of Jesus teaching.
Now, twenty years later, I will still say that’s the key foundation. I will agree with Putnam that largely, it is either absent in the USA or, at best, in deteriorating shape. And, as Putnam and others note, our loss of community has been deeply detrimental to us as a society and a culture.
Christine Pohl, Professor of Church and Society/ Christian Ethics at Asbury Theological Seminary, recently wrote Living Into Community. 
- Hospitality
- Truthfulness
- Gratitude
- Promise Keeping
These practices stand against the enemies of community such as betrayal, deception, grumbling, envy, or exclusion. In the end, as Pohl suggests, these four key practices must be employed. It is not enough to have merely good intentions to have community. Community must be practices, defended and, in the process of practice, have the skill of doing community sharpened.
This idea of practice is not one that we know well anymore, yet we can grasp the idea. Simply put….think of playing a musical instrument. The concept of how one hold’s one fingers over the piano or how one purses the lips for the saxophone or how strong of a grip one must have on the bow is ONLY developed over time. One simply cannot be told to do such and such a thing. Rather, you first have to have it demonstrated, and then you have to actually do it….again, and again, and again ad nauseam.
Having lived in the joy and the pain of community, where in our broken humanness it is almost impossible not to hurt one another, I agree in full with Pohl. In Hospitality, we open ourselves to share live with each other. Each much give it; each must receive. Hospitality is you opening your home and life to others…but it is also willingly going to the home of another, into the life of another.
Truthfulness is the commitment to be present, to be clear, to not wear masks. It is not speaking without love…”I was just being honest”…yes, with cruelty. It is words, yes, and those words are truthful, but we can lack truthfulness in our actions as well as our words.
Gratitude, while important for an individual, is vitally important for the group. It stands against grumbling, against the feeling each of us feels at times that “I am entitled.” Gratitude is deeply connected to humility, as I am aware of the fact that I cannot succeed alone, thus I am fully grateful for whatever comes my way. As I awake to find another day of life—something many won’t experience this day—I am humbly grateful for the chance to spend time with another.
Promise Keeping means that having committed myself to you…either as a parent, a spouse, a member, or a friend, I will keep that promise. I will not betray the covenant between us by abandoning you, even if you have (in my mind) hurt me. I will be there, keeping that promise of shared life to you, with you.
This day, think about your own community relations. How are you doing on these four foundation stones? Maybe, if you have dropped the ball, fallen off, on one of them in one of your communities….reach back out. Not only is that community worse off without you, you are equally bereft without community.