Last time we asked, “Who’s packing your parachute?”  Does a community surround you?  More thoughts on our need for each other:

1.  It’s not a matter of if you’re influenced, but how.

You can be as headstrong, independent and stubborn as you want, but in Proverbs 27, Solomon knows better:

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.  (v. 17)

Just as water reflects the face, so one human heart reflects another.  (v. 19)

Without good direction, people lose their way; the more wise counsel you follow, the better your chances.  (11:14, MSG)

A person who refuses correction will end up poor and disgraced, but the one who accepts correction will be honored.  (13:18, NCV)

Plans go wrong for lack of advice; many counselors bring success. (15:22, NLT)

Over and over again, Solomon reminds us that no man is complete in and of himself.  John Donne wrote:

“No man is an island, entire of itself.  Every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main.  If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less.  Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.  And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

It’s not a matter of if you’re influenced by someone, but how.  There is a deep-seated need in all of us for partnership and companionship.

If you don’t believe me, consider two signs of our times:

Chuck Swindoll talks about a Kansas newspaper where someone took out a one-line ad that read, “I will listen to you talk for 30 minutes, without comment, for $5.00.”  Swindoll said, “It wasn’t long before the person was receiving 10 to 20 calls a day. The pain of loneliness was so sharp that some were willing to try anything for a half hour of companionship.”

Here’s another example.  A Japanese entrepreneur understood the need for community and decided to offer a service to bring relief to loneliness.  For about $500 an hour, his company will provide three trained “stand-in family members” for up to three hours.

Not only does he have a booming business, he has a waiting list.  “Rent-a-family” works like this:  The hired actors play the roles of children, grandchildren, daughters, sons-in-law, whatever the clients require.  Normally, says the founder, they just sit around and talk.  That’s sad enough:  perfect strangers pretending they’re family.  But often, he has found, his clients rent a family for another purpose:  to criticize and berate their “pretend” children for leaving them so alone and sad.

Just as the triune God is complete through His community, so we, his children, are only complete through our community with Him and with each other.

Tags: church community, church group, community, life group, small group ministry, small groups

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