By Nick Jones, Frontline Creative Arts Future Leader

Community; the word has never held more weight in my mind until now.

Over the past 10 months, I have been learning more about it in Future Leaders, but it has been over the past few years that the Lord has been revealing to me its importance and necessity within the local church. I had interned at a smaller church a couple of years ago, and right as I got there a major and unexpected death occurred within the church family. Even though it rocked the church very hard, the way the body stepped up in support of the family who experienced the loss blew me away. Whether it was picking up kids from after school activities or cooking food for the family, they truly stepped up in a way that I had never seen before. As I became a Future Leader almost a year ago, it was cool to see in our leadership training classes how the early church constantly reinforced each other spiritually and were deeply engaged in each others lives.

As I continued reading about the various trials in the New Testament, it was amazing to me when I realized that I had seen this type of community played out in our modern, and sometimes not very biblically based, church. I had the opportunity to witness this same church again this past week, and again a serious obstacle had hit the congregation recently, one that could have crippled the church. But once again the members of the body have stepped up and given their time, energy and resources to the local church, reinforcing a biblically based and Christ centered community of believers.

Hebrews 12:1-2