Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another… – Hebrews 10:23-25

Generally, I am not a big “Throwback Thursday” participant. Wednesday afternoon, however, while doing some research for a new book I am compiling, I ran across two photographs that absolutely knocked my socks off.

The dates are, best estimate, the winter – January – and then Christmas of 1988 in Pensacola. Andrew and Naomi are three and five in the beach picture – I am thirty-one – and then four and six standing outside our house in Cordova Park.

Good grief are they not absolutely the most beautiful children imaginable? We had just moved into this classic 1950’s ranch, just a few hundred yards from the church. It had, several years previously, been the manse where the preacher’s family lived – Frank, Sylvia, Charles and Angela Beall – before the church sold it in favor of a housing allowance.

I could say that life was simpler back then – but it wasn’t! Rebekah and I were both immersed in demanding careers, working out how to navigate young children and school and each other, still growing up ourselves, struggling to make ends meet.

What made it all work (or just hold together sometimes) was our faith, our faithfulness, our clear sense of calling to serve and – probably most of all – the beautiful community of people we were committed to and who were committed to us.

I don’t think I can stress enough the critical importance of community. Life is difficult, marriage is a journey where we need not only a guide but an entire support team**, raising a family is beyond challenging. It’s not so much that we need a step-by-step instruction manual as the ongoing support, encouragement and even accountability of fellow-strugglers who also own the love and assurance and nourishment and hope of following Jesus.

**(Think Tour de France, where the bicycle rider may look like he is riding alone but a hundred yards back there’s a team driving a van, a pickup truck, three motorcycles and an ambulance!)

Now, almost forty years later, we still need such community. Not because we are in danger of falling apart but because this is God’s way for all of us. We are all God’s children and God’s plan has always been for humankind to live – and thrive – in community.

So I don’t say: “If you are in trouble, or lost, or hurting, you need The Church.”

Instead I say: “If we are breathing then we need The Church.”

If we are alive, if we are human beings, then God intends this as an essential part of what Jesus refers to as “abundant life” and the writer of Timothy describes as “the life that is truly life.”

Finding a faith community is that important – DEREK