By: Ber Stackhouse, MBA October 8, 2012
Additional scripture references from the New Revised Standard Version Bible (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1989)
When affirming spiritual practice, notions of self and others are vital to an understanding of the scope of community. Community may refer to a localized gathering of people to connect through spirituality or to a pondering of connection with the vastness of life beyond a church building for example.
An understanding of community relays the sense of affirming those within a particular spiritual group, gathering to provide physical, mental, and spiritual support, and enjoying the gifts of others such as teaching, singing, and encouraging.
Koinonia is “a word frequently used in the N.T. [New Testament] to refer to the peculiar kind of communion Christians have with God and with one another in Christ.”[1] To conceptualize that people can live beyond limiting self and toward embracing the divine, embracing one another, and to healthfully esteeming oneself may provide a new context for many in identifying with communion.
In thinking of communion, the language used surrounding the topic is important to viewing embedded theology. In developing awareness, relevance of spiritual community and fathoming place in the world can be discovered. An example for pondering is the term, Communion of the Saints. This is “a phrase that appears in the Apostle’s Creed and is the usual translation of the original Latin phrase communio sanctorum, which first appears in the creed in the early 5th century. Since the Latin term sanctorum could refer to either persons or things, it is not perfectly clear whether the creed refers to the communion Christians share in ‘holy things’ (the Eucharist), and thus is a creedal statement about the visible nature of the Church, or whether it refers to the communion (koinonia) Christians share with one another living and dead. The phrase plays an important role in the Reformers’ doctrine of the church, for Luther (1483-1546)….”[2]
Swee Hong Lim, in New World Outlook Magazine of the United Methodist Church, provides an example of congregational communion connecting with the vastness of life beyond a church building. Swee Hong Lim writes:
How might the concept of koinonia (fellowship of believers) be made present and meaningful to the other ecclesial branches of Christ's vine not directly affected by [tragedy]? In my view, this is why congregational songs from other lands play an important role. In essence, the song enables us to remember and share in the reality of its locus. Indeed, global songs from various countries provide the avenue for our local churches to connect with others who share the same Christian faith, albeit in different tongues and cultures. The act of singing, in a way, connects us with the universal church and its branches. Truly, global songs testify to the musical diversity that exists in the kingdom of God.[3]
I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit” - John 15:5, NRSV
As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” - John 17:21-23, NRSV
[1] Van A. Harvey, A Handbook of Theological Terms (New York: Touchstone, 1997), 142.
[2] Ibid, 55.
[3] Swee Hong Lim, “The Wesleys: A Theology of Hymns,” New World Outlook, (March/April 2009), http://gbgm-umc.org/global_news/full_article.cfm?articleid=5325 (accessed October 8, 2012)
[4] Charles Fillmore, The Revealing Word: A Dictionary of Metaphysical Terms (Unity Village, MO: Unity Books, 2006), 202.
[5] Ibid, 202.
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