That’s Australia’s Steve Irwin & he is a nutter. He deliberately goes out of his way to look for the world’s deadliest, most poisonous, aggressive animals & then holds them inches from his body. All for our entertainment & education. By any stretch of the imagination, he’s not normal.
And we’re not normal either. It’s pretty unusual for a group of 60 young people to come away for a Christian weekend together, to have big talks together, to share rooms, to sing songs & read the Bible, aswell as having a laugh & going on moonlight meanders together. It’s very different to what most of our other mates at school or Uni or work are doing this weekend. You ask your mates back home what they did on Friday night & you’ll get a hundred different answers. Most likely it’ll be stayed at home, watched TV. A good number will be round mate’s homes, some will be at parties, some will be working, some will be at a youth club, some will be sitting at a bus shelter drinking Smirnoff Ice having a puff. But not many will be in the kind of environment that you and I are in. It’s not, really, normal.
But we’ve all come away this weekend by choice, to be together. And this weekend we’re looking at the idea of Community. At what it means to be part of a group of people that have something in common with each other. My dictionary defines community as ‘a group of people having cultural, religious or other characteristics in common’.
What is it that we as a group have in common? How come we’ve all ended up here this weekend? Could be where we’re from…
· Christian connection – YF, Church
· Friends, either from YF or school
·
Girl or Boy we fancy
· Age – We’re all young or & of a similar age
· Family – Maybe our brother or sister is here, or our Mum or Dad came years ago.
· Habit – we’ve been coming over the years…
By definition, we have cultural (local, age, friendship), religious (Christian/Church), and other (habit, family) characteristics in common. Therefore, this weekend, by any definition, we are a community. Whether we think that’s brilliant, or we’re a bit nervous as to what that might mean, or we’re hacked off, cos we don’t want to be part of a stinking community, the fact is that for the next 48 hours at least, we are a Community.
What we’re gonna look at this weekend is what that means for us as individuals. We're part of something bigger than just ourselves, but that ‘bigger something’ is made up of lots of people just like us. We have a lot in common already.
We’re gonna be looking at what the Bible has to say about Community, and what that means for us a group both here at Cloverley, & back at YF on a Friday night & Squash on Sunday nights. But also, what it means for us throughout the rest of our weeks at school, college, uni, work, at home, down the shops, at church, down the pub, with the boy or girl that we fancy, whether we’re at McDonalds or in the park.
Let’s have a brief look at a bit from the book of Acts (2:42-47) in the Bible. It says this:
‘They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching & to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread & to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, & many wonders & miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together & had everything in common. Selling their possessions & goods, they gave to anyone who had a need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes & ate together with glad & sincere hearts, praising God & enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved’.
This passage talks about the first Christian community that existed after Jesus was around on earth. It was headed up by the apostles, another term for Jesus’ disciples, people like Peter, James & John who were Jesus’ closest friends. Everyone in that community shared things, ate together, worshipped & prayed together, and generally had a good time. These people are usually called the Early Church, and even though this was just under 2,000 years ago, it’s kind of a model for how Christians should ideally be today.
When you think about it, though, the early church described in the Bible isn’t that different to what we’re doing this weekend at Cloverley. Acts chapter 2 could quite easily read like this…
‘They listened to the talks and took part in discussions with each other. They had food together and talked to God. Everyone was well chuffed with what went on, great things happened that couldn’t be explained. Everyone piled into the same lounge & shared their sweets around. If anyone hadn’t got money for a can of coke, someone always gave them 50p. They met up loads of times over the weekend at Cloverley. They had a Communion service on Sunday when Richard Taylor came down, and all the girls thought he was the fittest vicar they’d ever seen. They had meals together & were happy. They thanked God for all he’d given them over the weekend, and all the leaders & the staff & even their parents back home thought they were a pretty cool bunch. And when Cloverley finished, everyone thought they'd like to come back again next year, only this time bring some more of their mates.’
(Acts 2:42-47 – The YF Version)
Not only are we a community by what the dictionary says, but we’re also a community by what the Bible says. Over the next 3 sessions, I’d like us to look at 3 different ways we are a community:
1. Community With Each Other
2. Community With The World
3. Community With God
Now I don’t know what you think about God, Jesus, the Bible, and Christians in general. You may have been a Christian for many months or even years, & you’ve got a real relationship going with God. Great. You may be someone who has come to this weekend almost begrudgingly, maybe you felt pressured to come because all your mates were, and this whole Christian & God thing isn’t something you’re keen on at all. That’s ok too.
I suspect that for most of us, we’re somewhere between those two ends of the spectrum. And I want to say at the beginning of the weekend, if you’re not a Christian, and only you will really know if you are or not, then we’re just glad you’re here. No-one here is gonna put any pressure on you to believe anything you don’t want to believe, to say anything you don’t want to, to pray or sing anything that isn’t true for you. We’re not expecting you to make a commitment or to become a Christian this weekend.
What we’re here for is to be a community of friends who come away for the weekend together to have fun & to make new friends, & also to look at what God might have to say to us as young people in 2005. There’ll be opportunities for you to have discussions, ask questions, disagree about stuff, and also to hopefully learn some new things about what being a Christian is really about.
And whilst there’s no pressure whatsoever to believe anything that’s said this weekend, if God is speaking to you, there’ll be opportunities to pray with people & to make a decision to follow Jesus if you’d like to. It’s my prayer this weekend that every one of us here discovers new things about God & falls in love with him & his ways either afresh or maybe for the first time.