It's About Communal

Like the many others who participate in the emergent conversation, Andrew Jones has an important nod in my daily network of hyperlinks.

Recently, Andrew posted some short thoughts on The Devotional Life. If you never read beyond the title you might be left with the impression that there couldn't be anything in the post that hasn’t already been said, but Andrew has a profound thought…

The previous church world that I was brought up in emphasized the individual's devotional life, and there wasn't a sense of a communal devotional life, or a devotional life that was perhaps even larger than that - something that spans time and space, spans generations, something that demands we continue in.

Individualism, modern era’s baby, blinded us to truth of communal living. A communal devotional life is bigger than one’s personal devotional life. And communal salvation is bigger than personal salvation for it provides the context that demystifies the gospel.

Because conversion involves a change in social identity, evangelism must be a corporate practice, executed by the community that is the source of the believers new identity.