God's Community - Where Is It?

I find the more that I work as a pastor the more I discover that my work is more about people than God, more about creating relationships than about claiming to have an “authoritative” relationship with God that others should imitate or emulate. Community is the thing that seems to characterize my days, time, and passion. Church is a sense is mostly about community, a gathered community of diverse and different people gathered together because of their common and shared Christian faith that we know God is a unique and life-transforming way in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, his life, teachings, death and resurrection. It’s this community that is the subject and object of my thoughts, dreams, vision, and time. How do we build up a community of people that share faith and a transformative experience of God’s presence, but might not share any sort of political belief, socio-economic status, cultural background, generational perspective, or technological resources? Doing this seems to involve me as much working within the relational web of our church community, as well as working and living outside of that paradigm in the connections in the community surrounding our church: the neighborhood watch groups, merchant associations, improvement associations, school communities, and community organizations that characterize and shape the neighborhood in which our church building is located.

What I find ironic is that historically the church has thought and acted in such a way that they presumed that they alone were the community through which God became known, or acted in the world. What I find paradoxical is that in my community-building presence and work I find that God seems to be moving, creating connections, and birthing new possibilities for community as much within the church as outside of it. Why is it that we often think in terms of insiders and outsiders when we think communally? I’m consistently marveled by the work and relational presence of the people around me – seeing how the God I believe is at the center of all life creating, sustaining, and resurrecting us is truly at the center of all of life creating new relational connections, sustaining individuals longing and working for a better world, and resurrecting or transforming dreams, efforts, and commitments to something bigger and deeper than a temporarily satisfied-consumeristic vision of daily life.

In our Oakland community I repeatedly experience God in many ways…..one of my recent “sacred experiences” was on Saturday, October 28th at the Dimond District Halloween Parade for children and pets. Ruth Villasenor & Diane Pfile owners of Paws and Claws have a local pet-store business that operates just as much if not more as a community center. They use their community relational connections as a way to build community, bringing people together, and creating new potential and possibilities for our area of Oakland through information, community campfires , local peace vigils and this recent Halloween Parade.



As a follower of Christ, I find that I experience the power and presence of God in such relationship building connections and gatherings….God is at work in our part of Oakland within our faith communities, but just as much (if not more) in our communities through faith – faith in the Divine Presence, and in the power of relationships. In his letter to the ancient church in Romans the apostle Paul writes that "all of creation is eagerly longing for the revealing of the children of God" Why is it that the church so often and easily forgets that God doesn't belong to the church, but rather that God invites us to be church in the world?