1. Nonviolence
2. Charity
3. Hospitality
4. Simplicity
5. Service
6. Humility
7. Mutual Submission
8. Being Prophetic
9. Struggling for Truth
10. Reconciliation, composed of these four:
11. Truthfulness
12. Merciful
13. Justice
14. Peace
I'm nearly finished -- just this post and one other -- with my list. Right now, I want to add the practice of community.
From the beginning, Christianity was intended to be practiced in community. Although seasons of solitude and prayer are practiced, the main locus of practice has been in community. We call that community, church. And the embodiment of this practice is most beautifully given in Acts 2.42-45:
"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to the prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 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, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."
No doubt, though, the practice of church is difficult. Churches can be extraordinarily frustrating and disappointing. Sometimes they can be decidedly unChristian.
The problem, of course, invariably reduces to "those people". Those people who frustrate us, vote differently than us, or have different spiritual sensibilities than us. How do we manage to get along with "those people"?
Yet, it's because it is so difficult to get along with others that makes the practice of community so critical. Community is hard because it demands us to be Christ-like. And, since so few of us are Christ-like, we cannot manage the practice of community.
Church is nothing less than the practice of embodying all the other practices I've written in this series. These practices just don't spring up out of nowhere. They need to be acquired over time, the way habits are broken and formed. Thus, in community, we try out new modes of living. As we acquire this "new life" we slowly, as a group, become a "city set on a hill".
How do we start practicing this community? There's been much written on this as part of the series already, but let me lay out a few ways that's articulated in the Acts description above.
1. "Devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching". The Church grows and thrives in its devotion to the ways of those who've come before us. Theology, curiosity, wonder and awe are essential elements in that teaching. This is the stability and continuity of the community.
2. "Devoted themselves to ... the fellowship." Community involves standing with and alongside a group of fellow Christ-followers. In the language of the NT, this practice is captured by the repeated refrain to "bear with one another". This is the solidarity of the community.
3. "Devoted themselves to ... the prayers." It's the definite article in Greek -- the prayers -- that makes this the corporate prayers of the Church and not simply the individual's prayers. We're talking about the Church's worship here. The liturgy -- the work of the people.
4. And, finally, "they devoted themselves to ... the breaking of bread". The practice of community is literally living together and sharing lives with companions. To be a companion is to share (co-) bread (panis).
It's hard to lay down rules for a community, because each will be its own character and have its own struggles. That there are four Gospels written to four distinct types of early Christian communities, demonstrates that vividly. But these attributes apply across the board, I think.
So, to our list, we should add:
15. Community, which embodies its own
16. Stability
17. Solidarity