The social dimension of healing: why people still need The Church.

There is a part of our healing and spiritual growth we do alone with God; and another part requires the right other people. We are both private and social creatures. Because God is social in Himself, we too are social creatures, and need one another to heal and mature in life.

Often suffering, forces us to find social life. But in truth, we need it all the time. We are interrelated creatures. And meant to grow in relationship.  This is one of the reasons for marriage, family and the church itself! The monks used to say, even in solitude if i meet God fully, i am immediately led to love others more. God designed things this way. We need each other. We need the parts of God flowing through one another. That’s a basic premise of the church. When you find God, you discover your intimate connection to His People and others walking around with and in Christ!

 There is a balance to have between inner and outer lives to be sure, but we certainly need both to know God more fully. He provided these ways on earth to know and meet Him. The church is one. We have to link ourselves to those He brings into our lives in order to grow properly.

The relationship between inner and outer lives. Practically how to rule over your body, and to not be controlled by the external world’s pressures. Dealing with governing over desires and bodily impulses. And social life. When and how deeply to encounter others and their needs. More intentional living. Less porous. Living less porously. Balancing this with Willard’s chapter on relatedness—that we discover and sustain who we are in loving relationships. Gods social matrix, even in Himself! Even in Himself God is social. The Trinity is a social community within God.

Also the role of the invisible church in true social growth and life. We join a society grounded in an invisible but real Reality. Our social dimension is transformed by being in relationship to those in Christ, even if we are all very imperfect at this point; because God has designed us to know and transform in this community.

 The personal connection with God; then the social connection with God—we need both to transform. “This must happen within the imperfect communities available to us now.” Dallas speaking of being connected with other believers.

When we can’t honor our parents (those generations before us, as well as our own spiritual parents, we lose the blessing attached to the sixth commandment! Many can’t honor their parents because of natural parental wounds or conflicts with their own parents in life. These must be healed so we can honor our parents, and God can flow in that area to bless. Healing the private and social dimensions of our lives. The church is provided partly to help heal our social or relational needs for healing.

The social dimensions of healing are one of the biggest problems in my own generation.

 We make societies on line out of anything, but in terms of the spiritual mutual nourishment which is meant to happen in Christ centered community, we usually withdraw or assault it, or simply don’t move in it from hurt. True community is meant to mutual bless and spiritually mature one another. That’s its’ purpose. We resist because we are hurt in this or that way. But God has provided the church as a healer for your social self. Because it mirrors who He is—a Social God. He is social in the Trinity itself. And He made the church as a place to make whole the social dimensions of who we are. We are interconnected through His Spirit, and need one another in a very basic way—even to be transformed into His Image and Nature. We cannot go it alone. Even if we’ve had terrible experiences with the church, and those we know are very broken; we still have to work with it as is, partly simply because God designed it to deal with our social self.

There’s a social dimension to healing! There are some parts of ourselves which cannot be touched any other way.

The challenge to find your social dimension with His social organism. We are social, and meant to heal in circles of people. We are spiritual, so are meant to be formed in spiritual relationships with others moving in His Spirit. People, like ourselves, are all lame and broken. Yet, that does not change God’s provision of spiritual community as His method of meeting us and healing us. You may have never seen a healthy marriage, still marriage is ordained by God as a way to know Him. These are the methods God made up, who are we to reject them.

The level of isolation and loneliness in our cities globally, is enough to motivate searching for a solution. But God has already provided His solutions—the church is one. We can’t reject that. Plus, we are to love what He loves, and He clearly loves his true Church. It’s for our good to join Him.

Why we still need the church! It’s God’s provision to heal and mature our social dimension. We cannot heal our lives alone. We are meant to mutually bless one another—this was Paul’s whole metaphor of the Body. One spirit, diverse gifts.

We also can’t just go take Jesus over here, and leave His church over there. He is One, and is in His True Church, and loves her intensely. The further we go into the life of Christ, the more we should be falling in love and laboring for His Church. For it is His House.

But often, we see the opposite. People want to love Jesus privately, but not love His People. It doesn’t work that way. I mean in Reality. You can’t mature in that private personal Jesus space. You need others in Him. The early church clearly modeled this. Hanging out in little packs and teams, and having larger gatherings as well. We need each other to be in Christ!

One reason for this is:

Humans grow in community. The family is the most basic version of this. Throughout our lives we make more and join more types of families. The church is the ultimate family given for our safety nurturance and healing.

God is social in His Own Trinity, and has made us to be social. We become more whole of one in relationship to others. This is one of the purposes of the true church, to allow His Blessings and Presence to flow socially.

Now we have many social wounds in life, and tend to either withdraw or assault other. But the reality is we cannot heal our social dimension outside of relationship with others. God has designed it this way, based on who He is.

Many will not join other believers because of their wounds and imperfections. It’s really not an option if you want to heal. We heal socially. Even the basic concept of family—that you were born into some circle proves this. We are social. The question is if we receive and give socially in a way which allows Him to form us.

Facebook is social as are all the sub-cultures we constantly create. Now when we come to the ultimate metaphor of society we have to look at the church—the place centered in Christ-as a social organism. And we have to work on being plugged into it, in the most mutually blessing way possible. Otherwise our social self will remain crippled, and others will miss out on the healing we carry for them as well.

Part of our sacrifice for loving the broken—especially the broken church—is for our own healing. The church in its current state may be the poor we are meant to love on! The lame, we are meant to heal. Regardless, we have no choice if we are in Christ at all, but to enter in and love His church.

Sex is an intimate social (in this case two people, but still requires us to not be alone) experience. It too was provided by God for mutual blessing, and to heal our social dimensions. We literally share our bodies in sex. Community and the most intimate version of sex are given by God as part of what we need to be whole in the relational aspects of ourselves.

We may reject our needs for social life, but not even animals are successful at this. We are social. And God has set things up so that we heal or are made whole socially.

I go to a local pub. Even those who sit alone most of the time, eventually get social, start sharing, need to feel heard seen cared for, included. No one is meant to live alone. Because again, God is a trinity, and is social even in Himself; and we are in His image.

The old people who take walks across the street from my home, often walk in twos or threes. Rarely is someone walking entirely alone. Perhaps at the end of life, people realize they need to give up total isolation and come home to the circle of Life. The family is our first circle which proves this to our hearts. But depending on how broken it was, we may need to do some real healing and re-attaching the right images to things, to move back into a healthy relationship with the social dimension of life. No one is entirely private alone isolated. We are meant to grow in relationship.

The church is the ultimate social organism on earth—even in its current state—where we are meant to be healed. This is because the invisible church is the fountain which Christ placed on earth to drink from. When we come together with other people in Christ, some parts are healed in us, which cannot be healed any other way.

While it is true that many suffer from not enough time alone (or an undisciplined inner life) in busy societies; it is also true that we cannot become our full selves apart from proper community. The God given social circle God has placed in your life, though imperfect, is a great and necessary gift!

People need the Lord—yes! But they also need The Lord in one another!

Prayer:

I receive the social circle of believers which You want to give me this season Lord. I see that you have made me social and want to nurture and mature that part of who I am, for Your Own pleasure. Thanks for providing the right people in my life to mature Your image in me Lord. I need it.

Clear any places of resistance to your social gifts in me Lord, as I grieve my own loneliness in certain areas, with my circle so spread out globally. Connect me at the proper level to the right people who are in You, each season of my life. Sorry for areas where I have blocked or made that hard for You Lord. The church is imperfect but Christ is not, and has provided it for you to know Him through.

Your church is imperfect, but You are not, and You have provided her for me to know and meet You through; and I trust your social way in this. I bless your church as Your provision to us in order to live well in You. Amen.

Again in each area, there is a part that we do, and there is a part which God does.

We are responsible for seeking out healthy relations with His people; then He provides all we were meant to receive from that social relationship.

In the case of the church, this is a social spiritual relationship, so our actual spirits can heal and bless. To be healed, is to be able to bless others.