7. What is the church? The church as a community

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"Contemporary life can only be built and lived as fully human in the context of a community of faith. The church must reform its life to become a community for the humanization of people and social life. ' This is one of the thesis of J. H. Westerhoff in his article "The Church and the family" that we recently read those who are in the family therapy course.

Our society is so fragmented that the nuclear family is no longer enough to understand the term family. There are many people alone, single mothers, marriages that need a community to stabilize. We realize that many people who come to the Iglesianecesitan help as families or need a family to welcome them, or need to create an alternative family that provides their fundamental needs for order, economy, security, stability, Education, support, etc. Many of these people will not be able to have an integral, dignified and healthy life if it is not within the framework of a community. Hence the need for the church to consider the creation of family nuclei with people who are trained to do so and to welcome and coexist with those who need an alternative family to recompose their lives and overcome their problems.

The Christian Church has the means to carry out the task of reforming its structures and adapting them to the needs of modern society, attending above all those who suffer the consequences of the destructive effects of this modernity. In the church there are enough resources to exercise the Ministry of Reception, Internal health, counseling, follow-up, etc. Often in the church there are also companies, or they should be created to provide economic means and work to those who need it.

Specific places are also needed, whether in flats or in large houses, where they can organise different styles and modalities of community life of a family character. The most important thing is the people with vision, willing to respond to this call and ready to pay the personal and family price to be able to carry out this goal of creating families for the without family.

The church must be like an extended family or a tribal family that provides what is necessary for a harmonious growth of each family and also for those who have no family. The same dynamics of the life of the Church in its organization of programs and activities should put the emphasis on "the church as a family", with social moments, meals, excursions, holidays and all kinds of encounters and coexistences that make possible a communion Intimate and mutual help of all with all or at least the most empowered with the neediest.

According to Westerhoff we need a wider community to help us in times of need, to help us know God's will for our lives, to be forgiven and reconciled, so that we can grow in our relationship with God, with us With our neighbour and with the environment. This community of faith is not an idealistic dream, but the reality to which God is calling us. For our institutional churches to survive and respond to the needs of the people of our time have to be transformed into communities. The church needs to provide a quality of life and experience essentially different from life in society. "

There are community churches of all kinds. There are some where everyone lives in community of life. Others carry out their communal life with regular meetings to eat and live together. There are several methods of sharing resources. There are also churches that admit in their bosom community lifestyles of varying degrees of intensity. All these and other forms are valid in order to provide a familiar environment for those who need it.

As we see in the Book of Acts after Pentecost, the early Church responded to the challenge of welcoming the thousands of new converts from far-flung countries into community-living homes. Among they had needed as each one contributed according to their possibilities and received according to their needs.

Today, in Díafrente to the challenges of our contemporary society, the Church must take new forms that can solve the great problems of the families and the without family, becoming a family of faith, life, health and hope.

The first Christians gave us the example, because "... breaking the bread in the houses, they ate together with joy and simplicity of heart" (Acts 2:42).

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Can you see the previous post series called What is the Church?:

1. What is the church? – Introduction
2. What is the church? -The church as the body of Christ
3. What is the church? - The church as the family of God
4. Whats is the church? -The church as a pillar of truth
5. What is the Church? | The church is the wife of Christ
6. What is the church? Our home as a church.