Don Atkin www.DonAtkin.com
What Gives Substance to Relationships?
To begin with, let us presume that Jesus is building His church relationally by building living stones together in each locality for practical and functional purposes. He is also globally networking servant-leaders as He did Paul and Peter in the early years.
It is those practical and functional purposes that provide the relational glue necessary for the body of Christ in each jurisdiction to manifest the love and glory of God. People who are involved with others in co-laboring matters requiring mutual interdependence are much more apt to stay together than those who just hang around the edges and never enter into a commitment in body life. It is what we give, not what we receive, that keeps us connected to one another.
Speaking the truth in love, (we) may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes the growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.[1]
We are joined and knit together by what we supply, not by what is supplied to us! This is true in great measure even in the natural world. It should be all the more true among kingdom-minded, new creation people. But, we must accelerate well beyond mundane housekeeping chores to truly meaningful and incarnational missions that are Spirit-driven.
True kingdom activities are normally the fruit of at least two or three people in agreement with Jesus, and therefore adding (at the prompting of Jesus within) the element of intentional incarnational intervention to intercession.
Take this most seriously: A yes on earth is yes in heaven; a no on earth is no in heaven. What you say to one another is eternal. I mean this. When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, My Father in heaven goes into action. And when two or three of you are together because of Me, you can be sure that I’ll be there.[2]
There is a quality of absoluteness involved among the people of God who are joined together in His purpose and pray together under the anointing of His Spirit! You’ve heard the expression, joined at the hip. The reality is much more significant. We are one—totally one—in Christ![3]
However true this is, both theologically and spiritually, so many fall away from one another because they are not involved in the substance of that reality which is found in purpose. Few people ever venture beyond the shallows on into the deep in their relationships.
There is a process that we must share together with others if we ever hope to experience the substance of biblical community. We will use the term liminality to identify the process, and then the term communitas to take us beyond what we normally understand as community.
Liminality is a term used to describe the transition process involving a fundamental change of state or social position—for example, in various rites of passage wherein people are significantly transferred from one stage of life to the next.
We were privileged some years ago to attend such a ceremony for a teen girl. The entire evening was choreographed to honor this person by the participation of several of her closest friends and family members. A variety of ingredients clearly spelled out the leaving behind of her childhood years and stepping into young womanhood. Her right of passage was accomplished in just a few hours.
While wonderfully powerful, and authentically prophetic, this experience was warm, cuddly, and totally non-threatening, especially when compared to a boy in an African tribe as he comes to the point in life to experience his rite of passage.
In some tribes younger boys are kept under the care of their mothers until initiation age—around thirteen. At the appropriate time the men sneak into the female compound of the village at night and “kidnap” the lads. The boys are blindfolded, then roughed up, and herded out of the village and taken into the bush. They are then circumcised and left to fend for themselves in the wild African bush for a period lasting up to six months. Once a month the elders of the tribe go to meet them to help debrief and mentor them. But on the whole they have to find both inner and outer resources to cope with the ordeal pretty much by themselves. During this shared ordeal, the initiates move from being disoriented and individualistic to developing a bond of comradeship and communality forged in the testing conditions of liminality.[4]
Our first example of a right of passage was ceremonial, while the second example was experiential. Much of the church has never passed beyond the ceremonial and entered into the experiential. Our first example (the young lady) focused upon an individual; the second example (the African boys) was focused upon community. Much of the church has never passed beyond being individualistic and forged bonds of comradeship and communality.
Communitas is an intense community spirit, the feeling of great social equality, solidarity, and togetherness. Communitas is characteristic of people experiencing liminality together.[5]
The related ideas of liminality and communitas describe the dynamics of the Christian community inspired to overcome their instincts to “huddle and cuddle” and to instead form themselves around a common mission that calls them onto a dangerous journey to unknown places—a mission that calls the church to shake off its collective securities and to plunge into the world of action, where its members will experience disorientation and marginalization but also where they encounter God and one another in a new way.[6]
Special Forces military units and sports teams experience higher levels of communitas than most Christians. Such units and teams share common visions and missions. It is common mission, tested by opposition that fuels the participants to much deeper levels of relationship.
The church was birthed in the midst of a hostile culture, and the believers’ lives were on the line.
They agreed they were in this for good, completely together in prayer, the women included.[7]
I don’t even know how to translate this into the modern religious vernacular. The similarities between then and now pretty much end with ceremonies, seldom or never touching the actual substance of incarnational mission.
However, I sense a stirring among many brethren to get beyond the present-day norm for church, and to experience that for which we are destined. There are those of us who are ready to embrace liminality, commit to communitas, and get about the privilege of incarnational mission.
To begin with, let us presume that Jesus is building His church relationally by building living stones together in each locality for practical and functional purposes. He is also globally networking servant-leaders as He did Paul and Peter in the early years.
It is those practical and functional purposes that provide the relational glue necessary for the body of Christ in each jurisdiction to manifest the love and glory of God. People who are involved with others in co-laboring matters requiring mutual interdependence are much more apt to stay together than those who just hang around the edges and never enter into a commitment in body life. It is what we give, not what we receive, that keeps us connected to one another.
Speaking the truth in love, (we) may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes the growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.[1]
We are joined and knit together by what we supply, not by what is supplied to us! This is true in great measure even in the natural world. It should be all the more true among kingdom-minded, new creation people. But, we must accelerate well beyond mundane housekeeping chores to truly meaningful and incarnational missions that are Spirit-driven.
True kingdom activities are normally the fruit of at least two or three people in agreement with Jesus, and therefore adding (at the prompting of Jesus within) the element of intentional incarnational intervention to intercession.
Take this most seriously: A yes on earth is yes in heaven; a no on earth is no in heaven. What you say to one another is eternal. I mean this. When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, My Father in heaven goes into action. And when two or three of you are together because of Me, you can be sure that I’ll be there.[2]
There is a quality of absoluteness involved among the people of God who are joined together in His purpose and pray together under the anointing of His Spirit! You’ve heard the expression, joined at the hip. The reality is much more significant. We are one—totally one—in Christ![3]
However true this is, both theologically and spiritually, so many fall away from one another because they are not involved in the substance of that reality which is found in purpose. Few people ever venture beyond the shallows on into the deep in their relationships.
There is a process that we must share together with others if we ever hope to experience the substance of biblical community. We will use the term liminality to identify the process, and then the term communitas to take us beyond what we normally understand as community.
Liminality is a term used to describe the transition process involving a fundamental change of state or social position—for example, in various rites of passage wherein people are significantly transferred from one stage of life to the next.
We were privileged some years ago to attend such a ceremony for a teen girl. The entire evening was choreographed to honor this person by the participation of several of her closest friends and family members. A variety of ingredients clearly spelled out the leaving behind of her childhood years and stepping into young womanhood. Her right of passage was accomplished in just a few hours.
While wonderfully powerful, and authentically prophetic, this experience was warm, cuddly, and totally non-threatening, especially when compared to a boy in an African tribe as he comes to the point in life to experience his rite of passage.
In some tribes younger boys are kept under the care of their mothers until initiation age—around thirteen. At the appropriate time the men sneak into the female compound of the village at night and “kidnap” the lads. The boys are blindfolded, then roughed up, and herded out of the village and taken into the bush. They are then circumcised and left to fend for themselves in the wild African bush for a period lasting up to six months. Once a month the elders of the tribe go to meet them to help debrief and mentor them. But on the whole they have to find both inner and outer resources to cope with the ordeal pretty much by themselves. During this shared ordeal, the initiates move from being disoriented and individualistic to developing a bond of comradeship and communality forged in the testing conditions of liminality.[4]
Our first example of a right of passage was ceremonial, while the second example was experiential. Much of the church has never passed beyond the ceremonial and entered into the experiential. Our first example (the young lady) focused upon an individual; the second example (the African boys) was focused upon community. Much of the church has never passed beyond being individualistic and forged bonds of comradeship and communality.
Communitas is an intense community spirit, the feeling of great social equality, solidarity, and togetherness. Communitas is characteristic of people experiencing liminality together.[5]
The related ideas of liminality and communitas describe the dynamics of the Christian community inspired to overcome their instincts to “huddle and cuddle” and to instead form themselves around a common mission that calls them onto a dangerous journey to unknown places—a mission that calls the church to shake off its collective securities and to plunge into the world of action, where its members will experience disorientation and marginalization but also where they encounter God and one another in a new way.[6]
Special Forces military units and sports teams experience higher levels of communitas than most Christians. Such units and teams share common visions and missions. It is common mission, tested by opposition that fuels the participants to much deeper levels of relationship.
The church was birthed in the midst of a hostile culture, and the believers’ lives were on the line.
They agreed they were in this for good, completely together in prayer, the women included.[7]
I don’t even know how to translate this into the modern religious vernacular. The similarities between then and now pretty much end with ceremonies, seldom or never touching the actual substance of incarnational mission.
However, I sense a stirring among many brethren to get beyond the present-day norm for church, and to experience that for which we are destined. There are those of us who are ready to embrace liminality, commit to communitas, and get about the privilege of incarnational mission.
[1] Ephesians 4:15-16
[2] Matthew 18:18-20 TM
[3] John 17:21-23
[4] Pages 220-221, The Forgotten Ways - Hirsch
[5] Wikipedia
[6] Page 221, The Forgotten Ways - Hirsch
[7] Acts 1:14 TM
