I grew up thinking the Christian faith was mostly all about one question: “Are you saved?”

I knew the answer I was supposed to give. I even had a date. Looking back, maybe God was asking a bigger question than the limited one I was trying to answer.

Somewhere along the way, salvation became almost entirely personal. It was all about my relationship with God, my prayers, my Bible reading, my assurance that I would spend eternity with God. 

Way too much of modern Christianity became little more than “me and Jesus got our own thing going.” The church was where people with similar stories gathered for an hour, then headed home to live mostly separate lives. Nobody ever stood in a pulpit and said that exactly. We just breathed it in until it felt natural.

Then I started paying closer attention to scripture. God calls Abraham and promises a family. God rescues Israel. God forms a people. Jesus calls disciples. He teaches them to forgive, eat, travel, argue, reconcile, even pray together. At Pentecost, the Spirit does not silo people into private spiritual experiences. The Spirit creates a community.

The story keeps moving from “me” to “us.”

Maybe we began with the wrong question. We stop at “Am I saved?” but also need to ask, “Who are we becoming together?” 

Community, these days, almost feels rebellious because everything around us tells us to think about ourselves first.

We live in a world built around the individual. Our phones know what we like before we do. Our playlists and feeds become mirrors reflecting us to us. Even churches can start feeling like one more consumer choice. We shop until we find the right music, the right preaching, the right programs, the right coffee. If something disappoints us, we leave. That is how consumers behave.

Families have to learn something else.

The writer of Ephesians 2:19 says:  “You are no longer foreigners or strangers. No: you are fellow citizens with God’s holy people. You are members of God’s household” (New Testament for Everyone).

God’s household.

That image catches me. Households are messy. Somebody burns dinner. Somebody forgets your birthday. Then somebody passes the bread anyway. Belonging matters more than getting everything right.

That feels a lot closer to church than most of what passes for church now.

One of the gifts Anabaptists offer is the conviction that nobody follows Jesus alone. The earliest Anabaptists read the Bible together. They expected the congregation to discern together. Baptism was never simply a private declaration about where someone would spend eternity. It was an entrance into a new people who promised to help one another follow Jesus. Discipleship was shared work.

That conviction still matters.

You cannot practice forgiveness by yourself. You cannot bear one another’s burdens if there is not another. You cannot learn patience without people who test it. You cannot discover grace until somebody disappoints you. 

Community is not an obstacle to spiritual growth. Community is where spiritual growth happens. 

Loneliness has become one of the deepest spiritual crises of our time. We have followers but few friends. We know each other’s opinions but not each other’s stories.

Even our politics invites us to shrink our circles. Every disagreement becomes another reason to divide the world into “our people” and “their people.” Church should be one of the last places where that makes sense. Something has gone seriously wrong if our communion tables look like our voting districts.

The church is not called to become a tribe that agrees about everything. The church is to become a people who love each other anyway. 

I don’t know whether churches will regain the cultural influence they once had. I don’t lose any sleep over that. I do wonder what would happen if our neighbors looked at our churches and could not quite explain them. Immigrants and natives sharing communion. People with money quietly helping people without. Lifelong members laughing with people who walked through the doors carrying questions. A community held together by something stronger than agreement.

The world knows how to build factions. The church is supposed to become a family.

Maybe salvation wasn’t meant to end with God rescuing me. Maybe salvation has always been about God creating us.