"And so the body grows until it has built itself up, in love" (Ephesians 4:16).
Communities are living organisms. Communities are marriages. Communities are relationships. They grow through somewhat predictable stages. The style, color, timing, and energy of these stages will differ according to a thousand and one different factors that cannot be controlled. It is often difficult to discern any constant patterns. However, there are some universal shifts and crises that any living body must go through in order to grow up.
I am mostly referring to communities held together by trust. Other types of communities might be held together by law, proximity, function, economic advantage, or specific goal orientation. But those communities whose primary motivation is faith have come together because they trust that God is doing something, that God is calling them to participate in what is happening; and as a result, they want to grow in trusting one another as they together trust the Lord.
This is undoubtedly the most difficult type of community in which to live. It is by far the most powerful. Every stage is a release of energy that can be either negative ,or positive, or maybe even both. Wisdom is in touch with this power. It is able to recognize and discern which energy is unto life and which is unto death: "But these are the very things that God has revealed to us through the Spirit, for the Spirit reaches the depths of everything, even the depths of God" (1 Corinthians 2:10).
We have become convinced in our nine years of community building at New Jerusalem that you can only build on life. All else is sand. You cannot build on fear, guilt, coercion, or even idealism. You cannot build on gospel passages, church commandments, or papal mandates, unless they are finally putting you in touch with life.
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