In her book, Bring Us Together, Marjorie Holmes prays, “Oh, God, we go through life so lonely, needing what other people can give us, yet ashamed to show that need. And other people go through life so lonely, hungering for what it would be such a joy for us to give. Dear God, please bring us together, the people who need each other, who can help each other, and would so enjoy each other.”
The desire for community has always been the deep longing of the human heart. I believe God created every human heart with the need to belong, to be accepted, included, and cared for in a community of other human beings. I also believe that the community of believers that prays together stays together and is strengthened with respect and caring love for one another.
Did you know that most of what the Bible says about prayer is addressed to groups gathering to worship and pray together? The book of Psalms, a great and much-used resource for individual praying, was written mainly for use in Israel’s worship as a gathered community.
This does not diminish the encouragement to pray as an individual, but it does give emphasis to the importance and value of groups meeting together for the purpose of praying. Jesus himself promised, “Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” (Mt. 18:19-20).
One of the most troubling attitudes in our Western society is its focus on individualism. This emphasis has greatly diminished our sense of community, and severely numbed any felt need for it. Individualism leads us away from God and his created intention for every human being to be in community with others.
I think this selfish spirit of individualism is a social cancer that is destroying God’s created intention for every human being to enjoy spiritual wholeness and well-being in a caring community that worships and prays together.
The early Christians caught this vision for community and determined to become a fellowship of sacrificial love, sharing life at all levels of spiritual, social, and economic relationships, such as shelter, clothing, food, and wealth. This is recorded in Acts 2:44-47, “All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
This God-designed purpose for community is what biblical scholars have named “the ministry of shared pilgrimage.” This is understood as a priestly role for all the people of God and fits well into the Anabaptist theology regarding “the priesthood of all believers.” The effort to live and pray together in community was understood as an essential core value by the Anabaptists.
When Jesus was asked by his disciples to teach them to pray, he began with the instruction to address God as “Our Father” thus making it a community prayer. With this instruction, Jesus is stating the importance of first acknowledging and affirming that we are children of God’s family, worshiping and praying together, as Christian brothers and sisters around the world.
It also implies that we acknowledge that we are not God’s equal peers, but rather we are homeless children that are loved and adopted into God’s family. These are biblical teachings that I fear we sometimes too easily forget, ignore, or simply take for granted.
I believe that whenever a community of believers gather to worship and pray together, good, and significant things do happen. When we acknowledge and give God his rightful authority in our lives, then praying becomes his primary way and means of giving direction so that his will and purposes can be accomplished through us as his children, his community of believers, named “Church.”
I propose that we best nurture community spirit and concern for one another whenever we gather as community to worship and pray together as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.
May it be so, always!
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“Healing Rays of Righteousness” – September 23, 2020
Ray M. Geigley
Healing Rays of Righteousness 
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