Skip to main content

Thoughts on Identity, Community and Purpose

Identity answers the question: “Who am I?”  Community answers the question “Where do I belong?”  If we look back to the very beginning of the human race, the fist community or group was the family.  Adam and Eve had children.  Their children had children and generational families were created.  Today, one might say that the basic community building block is still the family.  Until a person goes off to school, at least in the West, the family is the basic group or community.  In places where there is close village life or tribal life, the tribe is the earliest group of community.  Once a person goes off to school, the divisions and groups form and some of them become communities.

Not all groups are communities.  Groups are either forced or voluntary divisions of people based on some common attribute.  I, for example, am an American.  I would not say that I am in the American community, however.  A community it tighter than a group.  A community tends to be voluntary.  For a family, participation in the community can be voluntary, I suppose.  Our church is a community.  It is voluntary and based on the Christian belief system and location of common worship.

The progressive left desires to destroy all community in the world.  They do not want people to join together under any agreement or purpose, other than the political left.  Therefore the government will group people by race and ethnicity, by income level and education and neighborhood for their own political purposes.  Voluntary community formation is then disallowed in the world of the socialist left.

Of all the communities that the world offers people, the religious community of Christianity is the most profound.  It is important and valuable for the primary reason that it is eternal.  Christians that are known here on earth will be known for all eternity.  Christianity is subdivided into church communities.  The worldwide church will be in heaven with Christ, but on earth we meet with local, smaller groups.  This association is voluntary and with all saved people having the indwelled  Holy Spirit, we all serve the basic purpose of worship and love.  Also, in a Christianity community, people have the same basic rules governing  behavior.  People are usually nice and pleasant and church services can be a very good experience to enhance the community.

The world offers clubs and political parties and recovery groups and housing groups and all sorts of groups that will not last.  I was in the Boy Scouts, but have lost contact with all those boys, for example.  Facebook is trying to build another sort of community, but at the present time, it is not a replacement for true community.  There is not a common belief system or a common purpose, just a public bulletin board for posts.

Eventually, all who accepted Christ will join the heavenly community and all who rejected Christ will know the isolation of the Lake of fire.  The universe will be eternally divided into a community and isolation.  This is because Christianity community is forever.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Remembering the Franklin Day Planner

This week I have been rereading Hyrum Smith's book "The 10 Natural Laws of Productivity and Happiness." This book was written in the late 1980s and I remember reading it for the first time when I was working at Seagate Technologies, after my time in the Air Force. The core tool talked about in the book is the Franklin Day Planner . I remembering having one such planner, long before smart phones and Palm devices. Mine was a leather bound loose-leaf binder with calendar and note pages in it. I kept my daily tasks list and appointments in that binder, which became a record of my work history at Seagate and beyond. The Day Planner binders, pages and supplies were sold at a store called Franklin Quest , which was located at Valco Mall in Sunnyvale. At that time, I was a computer programmer. I was able to keep a record of all request for software, who made the request and when and what the requirements were. It seemed that I was the only one keeping a record of this b...

Cornerstone Fellowship

Cornerstone Fellowship started preaching truth in 1946, right after WW II.  It has been a light in a changing community and a changing world for the past 70 years.  Currently I am the pastor of Cornerstone.  My name is Michael L. Wilson.  It is my goal to preach truth and to explain truth to all who attend.   We subscribe to the reformed view of Christianity which includes the  Five Solas , or the five foundational "only" beliefs.   If you are looking for a Christ Centered church, let me recommend  Cornerstone Fellowship

Thoughts on Vacation

Over Memorial Day weekend, my wife and I went to the north coast of Washington State, the northern most border of America. The weather was sunny. Cold at night and sunny during the day. Even in May, the days were long with many more hours of sunlight than down in the San Francisco Bay Area. We wanted to visit cousins and see their new place. It was a great time away and a wonderful time of seeing new things. I had never been that far north while still in the lower 48 states. I was stationed in Alaska in the Air Force, so that is the farthest north I have been Vacation is good and a vacation where I get away from everything I know is better. This was a good vacation because it was in a new town with people I know and love. It was good because I knew people could and would handle the business of the church while I was away. A had a good filling and appreciate Kreig Sartin for preaching and Village Baptist for lending him to us. Vacation is usually about escape. The busine...