Why "Dear Grace Family?"
Almost all of our communication starts with the salutation "Dear Grace Family." That greeting is to serve as an intentional reminder that Grace Presbyterian Chelsea is not simply a random gathering or civic club. Grace Presbyterian Chelsea is the gathered people of God functioning as the body of Christ modeling the transformation that the gospel makes to every area of life. This is called community. Community is hard work and difficult to develop. A Christian community functions as a family.
Tim Keller quoting Randy Fraze from The Connecting Church:
Princeton's Robert Wuthnow has found that small groups mainly 'provide occasions for individuals to focus on themselves in the presence of others. The social contract binding members together asserts only the weakest of obligations. Come if you have time. Talk if you fell like it. Leave quietly if you become dissatisfied.' In 'Overcome Loneliness in Everyday Life," two Boston psychiatrists...suggest that...groups 'fail to replicate the sense of belonging we have lost. Attending weekly meetings, dropping in and out as one pleases, shopping around for a more satisfactory or appealing group--all of these factors work against the growth of true community.'
Tim Keller
Christians expect to find community by attending church services and coming to a small group. As the quote above points out, however, it is possible to hold a weekly small group meeting without adding the elements that create real community. Because of our idols and the habits of our heart church events simply become places that individuals 'focus on themselves in the presence of others.' It takes deep reflection and costly commitment to live in community.
He describes Christian community in three ways. The second is:
A Christian community...consists of people who deliberately share life together. The controlling biblical metaphor for this aspect is that Christians are God's 'family' and 'household' (Gal. 6:10; Eph. 2:19; 1 Peter 4:17; Rom. 12:10). A family shares all of life together, eating, living, and working together. The other controlling metaphor is 'the body,' another powerful way of saying that Christians are not an aggregation of individuals but a coherent organism, with each member playing his or her part and deeply, integrally connected to the rest.
-From "Gospel in Life"
