Class Three: Community

Welcome to the third class in our study of Solitude, Community, and Service.

This class will focus on community as an essential part of the Christian life. Community is more than being around people, attending the same church, or sharing common interests. In the writings of Henri Nouwen, community is the place where believers learn to receive one another in love, live honestly before one another, practice forgiveness, and grow together as members of the body of Christ.

Christian community is not formed by perfect people. It is formed by people who are learning to live together under the grace of God. Community requires patience, humility, honesty, compassion, and the willingness to see others not as obstacles, rivals, or burdens, but as brothers and sisters in Christ.

What We Will Explore

In this class, we will consider the movement from hostility to hospitality. We will reflect on how easily fear, defensiveness, comparison, judgment, and self-protection can shape the way we relate to others. We will also consider how God calls us to a different way: a life of welcome, grace, listening, forgiveness, and shared belonging.

We will explore how community grows when believers are rooted in God’s love rather than driven by insecurity or the need to prove themselves. True community does not deny weakness, difference, pain, or conflict. Instead, it becomes a place where these realities can be brought into the light of Christ and met with grace.

Key Questions

As we begin this class, we will reflect on questions such as:

• What is the difference between simply being with people and living in Christian community?
• Why is community often both a gift and a challenge?
• How do fear, judgment, comparison, or resentment damage community?
• What does it mean to move from hostility to hospitality?
• How does solitude prepare us to live more graciously with others?
• How does Christian community help us grow in love, forgiveness, and humility?
• How does community prepare us for faithful service?

Scripture for Reflection

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”
— John 13:34

“By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
— John 13:35

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
— Galatians 6:2

“And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”
— Ephesians 4:32

Purpose of This Class

The purpose of this class is not only to understand the idea of community, but to consider how God uses community to shape our lives. Community teaches us to move beyond isolation, self-protection, and individualism. It invites us to live as people who belong to Christ and therefore belong to one another.

In community, we learn to listen, forgive, encourage, serve, and bear with one another in love. We also learn to face the parts of ourselves that are impatient, defensive, judgmental, or afraid. Through the grace of God, community becomes one of the places where Christ forms His character in us.

Our Hope

Our hope is that this class will help us see community not merely as a church activity, social gathering, or religious obligation, but as a gift from God and a place of spiritual formation. As we learn to live together in grace and truth, may we become more patient, more forgiving, more compassionate, and more faithful as members of the body of Christ.

Community is not the end of the journey. It grows out of solitude and prepares us for service. As we receive God’s love and learn to share life with one another, we are then sent outward to serve others in the humility and compassion of Christ.