In the book Christine works through four practices that sustain vibrant Christian communities. The four practices are gratitude, promise-keeping, truth-telling and hospitality.
I'm keenly interested in all these practices but today I want to say something about promise-keeping and community.
Specifically, one of the questions I often ask myself about my church, which is reflective of most churches I suspect, is this: What binds us together as a community?
As best I can tell what binds us together is liking. We're at our church because we like it. Because we like the sermons. Or like the worship. Or like the programs. Or like the bible classes. Or like the people.
We are there--we are a "church," a gathering--because we like the same things.
Obviously, this is a very thin web of support--our liking, our preferences--that is holding us together. What happens when we get a new preacher and we don't like the sermons as much anymore? Or what if the worship style changes and we stop liking it?
What happens when the going gets tough? When sin needs to be confronted, when discipleship gets costly, when love gets sacrificial or when deep disagreements are aired? What happens when doubts deepen and faith grows cold?
Will liking be enough to bind us together during these seasons?
There needs to be something more than liking. So what might it look like if a church was bound together by promises rather than preferences?
Because love, it seems to me, is less about liking than it is about promising.
