Build Community
SUMMARY
In this sermon, Karl Ihfe unpacks what it truly means to "build community" as part of Broadway's mission to pursue God, build community, unleash compassion, and share Jesus. Drawing from 1 Corinthians 12, Karl reminds the church that every person is an indispensable part of the body of Christ — placed there intentionally by God — and that real community goes far deeper than friendly conversation over coffee. Through four key practices — building relationships across generations and cultures, practicing courageous vulnerability, creating space for everyone to belong and participate, and committing to spiritual mentoring — Karl calls Broadway to be a church where the body of Christ is truly lived out together.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Well, we are excited to have you with us this morning. We're excited about the upcoming Wednesday night class that we're in right now, invite you to come and join us. For that. We got to hear from a couple of our local mission partners. This week we're going to hear from a few more, three more, in fact.
One of them is called Domestic Missions. And I know for some of us that may not make a whole lot of sense. So I invite you to come and hear about it on Wednesday night. What we've done, what our missions committee has done, is said we want to be the kind of church who, who invites and empowers our church to go be on mission. So we want you to support the actual mission partners that we have, but we also consider you one of our mission partners.
And so we want you to be thinking and dreaming of and open and aware of the way God is at work in your life and how he may be partnering with you to do some amazing things in our community. And so as you think about those ideas, we want you to know we've set some money aside and we'd love to partner with you to be a blessing and to share Jesus in your neighborhood, in your community, at your workplace, at your school, whatever may be. So come on Wednesday night, hear more about that and the other exciting things we have going on with our counseling, ministry and others with our partnership that we get to have with Saint Benedict's, our carpenter's kitchen and Saint Benedict's partnership. There's a lot of cool stuff happening. If you have your Bible, I invite you to Turn over to First Corinthians, chapter 12.
We'll be there this morning. We're in a series right now called who We Are Thinking Some Together, about what it means to be God's people here in this place at the Broadway Community Church. But to do that, we have to discover and remember once again what it's all rooted in. So last week we looked at this statement that we think kind of encapsulates all that we're about here at Broadway, and that's this. We believe God is restoring the world through Jesus Christ and that he has invited us to partner with him.
He's invited us to participate, which is a pretty amazing thing. And so as we think about all that we do here at Broadway, it comes underneath the that reality that the story of scripture is the story of God not being willing to be separated from his creation, but instead is doing that reconciliation work back to him, that through Christ, God is restoring people to one another. And people back to him and in fact, all of his creation back to himself. And again, God's invited us to participate. So we see our role here as trying to be, as best we can, his hands and his feet.
And so what is that going to look like for us? What will that turn into? How will we try to live that out? Well, the way we think about it is we want to be people who remove barriers and who build bridges. We're the kind of people who intentionally live in a specific way to remove the obstacles and barriers that are between God and his people, between people amongst each other, but also between our church and the community around us.
And we want to be the kind of people who build bridges. In fact, that's the posture that we're trying to take. And so the way we've talked about it here at Broadway, and I hope you've heard this language a lot, you're going to hear it a whole lot more, especially in this series. But the way we're trying to live that out is we pursue God, we build community, we unleash compassion, and we share Jesus. Last week we spent some time thinking about what it means to be people who pursue God.
This morning, I want us to think together about what it means to be the kind of people who serve. Build community. And when I say build community, I want us to think beyond just having friends. Like, that's a really important thing. But it's bigger than even being a friendly church.
It's bigger than just having coffee in the lobby. And Kevin does a great job to make sure we've got plenty of caffeine for you. But we mean more than just knowing even someone's name or recognizing them or joining a Bible class or a small group. Those things are all really important. But when we think about what it means to be a church that's committed to building community, what we recognize is that Jesus doesn't just save individuals, he saves groups of people.
He joins us together as his people. In fact, let's look back at that passage Jennifer read for us just a Moment ago in 1st Corinthians 12, where Paul draws upon this beautiful image. He says, just as a body, though one has many parts, but all its many parts form one body. Well, so it is with Christ. Notice Paul's language here.
He doesn't say so it is with the church. He says, so it is with Christ. Meaning Christ has so identified himself with his church, with his people, that Paul can look at this diverse and imperfect collection of human beings and say, now this is the body of Jesus. For we were all baptized by one spirit, he says, so as to form one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free. And we were all given the one spirit to drink.
People with different histories, people with different experiences, people with different cultures and ideas, with different politics and economic realities that all equals, he says, one body. Not because they all. All of their differences have been changed somehow or that they all suddenly become alike. Paul says that the thing that makes them one is Jesus has joined them together. He has joined each and every one of us together.
I mean, that's Christian community. It's not surrounding myself with people who think exactly just like me, who vote just like me, who spend money just like me. It's more than that. Christian community, in fact, Paul will say, is learning to receive the people that Jesus has joined together. And he keeps going.
He says, even so, the body is not made up of one part, but of many. And then he imagines your foot saying, well, I'm not a hand, I guess I don't belong. Or an eye say, well, I'm not an ear, I guess I don't belong here. I mean, that's ridiculous, right? A body needs different parts to function.
He gives this truth. He says, but in fact, God has placed the parts in the body, every single one of them, just as he wanted them to be. Now, don't miss that this morning church. God has placed every part of the body exactly as he wanted it. So I invite you just to take a moment to look around this auditorium.
God has placed every single part of this body here. And we're not looking at people who just happen to be at the same place at the same time. Now we're looking at people that God is joining together. The old and the young, the married and the single, the strong and the weak. Different cultures, different experiences, different backgrounds.
I mean, sometimes we may see a part and assume that's not a very important part. Or maybe even worse, we don't even notice. We tend to notice the visible, but we don't tend to notice the things that are invisible. But some of the most important work that's happening in your body right now is happening by parts that you don't see. And in fact, they're parts you don't think about.
Like, for example, swallowing. Go ahead and swallow, if you would, for me. You know, you do that on average about once a minute when you're eating. Obviously you do it quite a bit more. But there's this little part of the process in swallowing, swallowing, number one, you don't ever think about.
But there's this thing called the epiglottis. Now, how many of you know what an epiglottis is? Some of us do, but many of us don't. But I can promise you this. If you didn't have an epiglottis, you would know if it decided, I don't think I'm going to work today.
I don't think I'm showing up. You would notice and you'd be in big trouble, right? It's that flap that. That covers your trachea so that when you consume food or when you drink a beverage, that it doesn't go down the wrong pipe. And you all know what happens when sometimes you catch your epiglottis by surprise.
You know, maybe somebody says a funny joke while you're drinking a beverage, right? You need that part. But most of us never think about it, right? We don't wake up in the morning and say, oh, Lord, thank you for my epiglottis. Please help it to show up every time it's needed today, Right?
We just trust that it's gonna do the work Most of the time. I wonder how many people are like that. How many people in the body of Christ are like that. Their name is not ever highlighted. They're not on stage leading anything.
But every day they show up and they do their work and they do their job and they work hard. And God blesses us. Paul says, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker, the parts of the body that we don't often notice, they're actually indispensable. Your epiglottis is indispensable. Would you turn to your neighbor and just say that your epiglottis is indispensable?
It is. Why? Because there are no insignificant people parts of the body. There's not one. Paul says it like this, verse 24.
But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for one another.
If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. And if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now, you right, West Texas version, y' all are the body of Christ, and each one of you has a part. Each one of you is a part. I mean, that's what we mean when we say build community.
We want to be a church that builds community. Because church, you don't just go to church. You belong to a people. You are part of the body of Christ. And again, our vision team has worked so hard these last 18 months to help give us a picture of what this looks like.
And so they've identified four practices that when we think about what it means to be a church committed to building community, here's the first thing. We're going to build relationships across generations, across cultures and across backgrounds. And we're doing this because we want our life here at Broadway to mirror what's happening in heaven. The answer to God's to Jesus prayer on earth as it is in heaven. God, just please lose me.
Can you hear me now? No. All right, could we hit the pulpit on that? And I'll just stick closer to home. If Paul is right, and if God has intentionally placed each part of the body together, he's brought all these different parts together, one of the great temptations of the church, then, is to undo the work that God is trying to do.
We're naturally drawn toward people who are like us, the same age or stage the same interest, the same hobbies, maybe the same situation in life or circumstance. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that. That's pretty natural. We don't have to think too hard about that. But you see, if we're not careful, church, what then begins to happen is we start to become homogenous, right?
Where we think that all alike, we think all alike, and we actually stop learning or discovering or knowing people who are not like us. You see, Paul says part of the beauty of the body is that we're all different, that it's different parts coming together that I can't say to the hand, I don't need you, and the head cannot say to the feet, I don't need you. We need each other, our kids and our teenagers. They need older members who are not their parents, who are not their grandparents, who know their name, who know what's happening in their life and who cheer them on and who pray for them and who encourage them, right? And our older members, they need the questions and the energy and the noises that come from little ones.
They need the passion and engagement with life. They need that perspective. You see, we need relationships with people who come from different places and different cultures and different experiences. Because if it's not, if we don't have that, then we begin to think, my experience is everybody's experience, and that's just not true, right? Relationships expand us.
They help us grow, they teach us to listen, they expose our blind spots and they show us parts of God and his kingdom that we would have missed if it had just been my way. And so again, the church becomes this preacher preview of what God's kingdom on earth as it looks in heaven will be like. A community where different gifts don't have to become divisions, but instead become this beautiful panoply of all that God is doing. So let me ask you this morning, church, who do you genuinely know at Broadway who isn't like you?
Who do you genuinely know? Not just who do you wave at? Oh, hey, how you doing? Who do you know who doesn't think like you, who doesn't vote like you, who doesn't spend their money like you, who may have some different challenges that you don't have? Who do you know?
Because building community means we're committed to crossing the room and getting to know and build relationships across generations and. And across cultures and across backgrounds. But not only that, the second practice that our team handed to us and said we're going to be about this is we're going to practice courageous vulnerability. Now, again, we do this so that Christ can form in us an authentic and steadfast community together. But here's where community starts to get pretty difficult, doesn't it?
You see, it's possible to be around people and never really know them. We can learn how to present a particular version of ourselves. I know nobody in this room would do that, but you could imagine how if I wanted to just present a specific image to you about what I think you think my life is like. I just cue social media. We can cultivate, we can manipulate and present a certain perspective.
I mean, the number one answer at church when someone asks how someone else is doing, it is fine. How's work? Fine. How's marriage? Fine.
How's life? Fine. How are things at home? Fine. Right?
When all the while we're falling apart. It's not fine. I mean, church, that may be community, but that is rather, that's proximity. Just being around someone, real community requires being known, letting somebody know who we are. And that takes courage.
Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew, chapter seven, said it like this. He said, do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Now, Jesus isn't telling us to not learn how to discern what's right and what's wrong.
I don't think that's what he's doing. I think he's confronting this condemning posture that says, well, you're wrong and that means you don't belong. You see, condemnation kills community because it teaches Us to hide. You see, if I believe that the moment I share my truth, what's going on with me, with you, that you're going to condemn me or you're going to judge me, well, then I'm going to hide behind that. I heard a preacher once say, and I've said it myself, he said, you know, if you knew about me what God knew about me, you wouldn't be here today.
But if I knew about you what God knew about you, I wouldn't have let you in the door. And so we kind of have this mutual standoff here. And I think that actually undercuts what Paul's talking about that creates all this hiddenness and secrecy. You see, Jesus presents a different kind of community of life together, one where grace and truth can actually coexist, that we can tell the truth to each other and we can hold each other accountable for the life. Right.
This morning, we heard Paul's call to the church in Colossae to live a life worthy of the gospel that you've received.
Like that's possible. We can really say, I'm struggling, my marriage is struggling, or I'm lonely, or I've got this sin in my life and I don't know what to do about it. I feel trapped. I need help. Paul says, if one part suffers, every part suffers with it.
If one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. But you can't suffer with someone if you don't know them, if you don't know that they're going through something. You see, Biblical community, it requires courageous vulnerability. Somebody has to risk telling the truth. But there's a flip side to that coin.
Somebody has to be a safe place to be told the truth. Building community requires courage on both sides. It takes courage to be known and the courage to know. You see, at Broadway, we want to be the kind of community where it's okay to not be okay and to talk about it and to ask for help and to know that we're with you, you are not alone in this, that asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It actually takes a lot of courage.
And we value courage, courageous vulnerability around here. And so we want to be the kind of people who build that kind of community together. And so maybe for some of us, the next step is to have the courage to tell the truth to somebody. Maybe it's to be the kind of person that somebody could tell the truth to, where you're quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to be angry. You don't judge, you Listen, you love what goes hand in hand with that vulnerability, we believe is cultivating opportunities for every person to belong and for every person to grow and for everyone to have an opportunity to participate in God's work.
Now, I think it's so interesting that Paul in this passage, he spends a lot of time, several verses, talking about people who don't think they belong. Now, if the foot should say, because I'm not a hand, I do not belong to the body, just because it says that would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, well, I'm not an eye, I'm not part of the body, it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. In other words, I'm not like them. So I guess I don't belong.
I find it fascinating. This is not a recent problem church. This has been a problem since the church began, that some people show up and they get this sense, I'm at church, but I don't really belong here. I'm not like them. I don't look like them, I don't talk like them, I don't live like them.
I don't know enough. I made too many mistakes. I don't have anything to offer. Paul says, that's not how the body works. You don't belong to it because you're impressive, because you have it all figured out, because you have everything together.
He says, you belong to God because he joined you. He made you a part. See, belonging means you have something to contribute, every single one of us. Because the church isn't made up of participants and spectators. There are no stands in the church.
There are no sidelines upon which you stand. You're invited to get in the game. He says, now you, church, y' all are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part. I love the picture that we see of the early church in Acts chapter two, who really this captured their hearts. And they said, we want to be this kind of place where anybody can be a part of it.
Nobody's perfect, everybody's welcome. Anything is possible. They devoted themselves in verse 42 to the apostles teaching and to fellowship and to the breaking of bread into prayer. All the believers were together 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. We learned the church worshiped and ate and prayed together. They practiced hospitality. They served alongside one another. Everyone together.
And so we're trying to do that same thing here at Broadway. Opportunities for you to Worship. Every week, we're going to create opportunities for you to come and gather with the church in worship. Trusting and believing that we're going to encounter God and that at worship, God's not just. It's not just something we do, but where God is doing something to us.
You're going to have opportunities to gather in groups and get under God's word and to get around tables and share fellowship and meals. And then you're going to have a chance to go out into the community and serve and unleash the compassion of Jesus. We want to cultivate the kind of opportunities where everybody belongs and everybody has a chance to grow and everybody gets a chance to participate in God's kingdom work. Well, the last practice that we want to focus on as we think about building community is we want to commit to spiritual mentoring. And again, we do this so that every generation takes responsibility for the next.
This practice, it requires intentionality because community isn't just about having friends. It's certainly about that, but it's so much more than that. You see Christian community, what we discover is it has a direction. It's going somewhere. We are helping one another become like Jesus.
So the Christian faith has always been handed down from one generation to. To the next. In fact, every single one of us here today, we're here today because someone else taught us, someone else prayed for us, someone else came alongside and said, I see Christ in you. Let me tell you the story. Someone answered our questions, and some of us had a lot of questions.
Some of us still have a lot of questions. Some of us know what it looks like to see faithfulness because we had a friend, a trusted family member. Maybe it was a parent, a grandparent. Maybe it was a teacher or a coach or a mentor, some friend who believed in us, and they shared with us the story of Jesus. And so one of the questions that we're going to keep asking one another is, who are you investing in?
Who am I investing in? Who are we investing in? Right. We want to be a church where. Where spiritual mentoring, it's normal, right?
Where older believers walk alongside our younger believers, and our younger believers look up to our older believers looking for wisdom and encouragement in spiritual mentorship. Here's one of the amazing things. It doesn't require you to know all the answers. It doesn't. In fact, that's often not what's looked for in the mentoring relationship.
Instead, it requires being willing to share your life, to come alongside somebody and say, here's what I've learned following Jesus for As long as I have. Here's some of the mistakes that I made and the ways that Jesus met me and he changed my life.
Here's how God impacted me, what I'm still trying to learn and grasp. Let's do this together. You see, that's how faith gets passed on. It's not just in sermons. Even though I know it gets passed along through sermons.
You guys know that full well.
It's not through programs and ministries, although it does. But it's one person to the next saying, I care about you, I love you. How's your life? Not fine. How are you?
What's really going on? How can I pray for you, man? I've been through some of those kind of things before. Can I tell you what happened to me? We want to be that kind of church through one person investing in the life of another.
James K. Smith talks about faith. He says faith is caught, not taught. It's caught by watching the people around us and experiencing the love of Christ through them. That's what we mean when we talk about a church that's committed to building community. One body in many parts, different experiences, different circumstances, different generations, different stories, different backgrounds, but one spirit and one body.
A community where we build relationships across generations and cultures and backgrounds. A community where we practice courageous vulnerability, where we create opportunities for every single person who shows up to belong, to grow, and to participate in God's amazing work. In a community where we take responsibility for passing on the faith by mentoring those who are coming behind. Again, none of this happens accidentally. That's why we have the value build community.
It's going to take some work. And we're trusting that God is doing that work in us. So as we finish this morning, let me just invite you to consider this question this week. What's your next step? What's your next step in helping us build community here at Broadway?
Is it maybe to cross generational or cultural? Cultural or a social divide? Maybe it's being courageous enough to tell the truth or saying, God, could you help me to become the kind of person that others can tell the truth to? Maybe it's to move from watching and experiencing from afar, to participate in getting involved. Or maybe it's to turn around and see who might be coming behind, say, God, help me to.
To see who. Who's another life that I could invest in, that God might make a difference in their life, too. You see, we don't simply attend church together. We belong to one another. We are the body of Christ.
So let's get to the work of building our community together. God, would you help us this week as we go about all that's about to be? We know we're going to face some challenges, but. But God, we are trusting and believing that. Holy Spirit, you're already at work preparing us.
So, God, would you give us eyes to see and ears to hear? We want to be a church that makes your amazing restoring love visible in the world around us. We want others to see your love in us. So God, would you show us this week ways that we can cross a divide, whether it's a different generation or a different culture or a different social experience. God, would you help us to be people who tell the truth and who can hear the truth, and we do it in love and grace, in forgiveness and in hope?
God, would you help us to move past just being spectators and to being active participants? God, would you help us to be a church where everybody belongs, nobody's perfect but God, because of you, anything is possible. Father, help us to invest in the next generation, whatever that may look like for those who are coming up behind. Would you help us not to keep our faith to ourselves, but to pass it on just the way that we receive? God, would you help us to freely give?
Lord, we want to be the kind of church that builds community. Would you help us to be that? We pray in Jesus name, Amen.