“I need people to keep me focused on Christ, point out my mistakes, encourage growth and share the burden of my hardships. And, believe it or not, there are people who need me for those things too.”

I don’t like to need anything. I don’t like to need rest when there is work to do and I don’t like to need a doctor when I get injured because that probably means I did something silly (like walk down the stairs wrong).

Above all, however, I don’t like to need people. My sinful self doesn’t want to be honest about my struggles and shortcomings—something that community would require me to do.

I need people to keep me focused on Christ, point out my mistakes, encourage growth and share the burden of my hardships. And, believe it or not, there are people who need me for those things too.

In spite of this, many Christians in today’s culture think about church in this way: that they are capable of growing closer to God without it. Instead of uniting together in fellowship as we should, too many people are trying to live the Christian life independently. In a recent sermon at Commerce Community Church, pastor David Ferguson said that “to be a Christian is to be a person in community.”

Two particular verses illustrate this issue well:

“Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” – Hebrews 10:25

“By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” – John 13:35

One of the leaders at the Baptist Student Ministry (BSM) I attend said “if we don’t come together with other believers, then we won’t be able to love them OR display that we are following Jesus”. Therefore, we need community.

My Type-A personality demands that I summarize this article in two points:

1.) Gathering with other Christians is necessary to show love, become more like Christ and encourage one another. (This point was elaborated on above.)

2.) God’s people are designed for community.

We need to live life with fellow Christians not only for the mutual benefits (learning to love, reflecting Christ, etc.) but because our design requires it.

In Genesis 2:18, God calls everything (even snakes, spiders and cockroaches) good except for the fact that man is alone. Some of the creepiest creatures receive God’s approval but not our loneliness. Why? Because needing people is not a weakness. It is God’s design.