Koinonia

These are random thoughts from a Jacob's Porch bible study I managed to attend during the minute and a half I was in Ohio between moving from Wyoming to Colorado.

Koinonia is an anglicized (meaning it's been English-fied) Greek word that basically boils down to community. We were specifically using the word in the study to talk about community between members within a church.

We ended up dialoguing about community with God vs community with each other. It seemed as though we were talking about having just one or the other, or that having community with one was better than having community with the other. Personally, I think that both are right. There is an innate, inescapable sacrifice of ourselves to be in community with God. We lose ourselves basically. Everyone loses self to be one with God. Every single person is one in God, so every single person is one with each other. This leads to community with each other. It's like a cycle of community, and losing of self to gain another self. But if both communities (community with God and community with each other) are not equal, one will overtake the other. And that's not healthy.

Koinonia is whole when it's broken. By this we meant to focus on vulnerability and the role it plays within community. A person is whole when they are broken, but only when they are broken with others. We cannot be broken alone--that will lead to death. As people, we are broken, but that is not the end of our story. We are not the end; church is not the goal of Jesus. We are not perfect; admitting our brokenness brings healing.

One of the topics I found really interesting during the study though, was the mentality people have in groups. When we are a part of a group, we stop being about our individual selves. We will protect the group from threats by individuals that are a part of the group. If an individual is threatening the welfare of the group, the group will protect its existence by getting rid of that individual.

For more information, please check out the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koinonia

Community is there to be what you don't want to be that day. -Amber Loewen