I have recently shared my gratitude for our community and the way their faithful prayers have been such a light (and making change) in a trial our family is facing. This week, I’m thinking of community again because my ordination service is just over a month away and in the past several years there have been several people who have been supportive community in my process, but also influential in my walk with Christ and I want them to be present at this precious worship service.

Aside from that, I’ve been praying about community with friends and ministry colleagues as we feel God calling us into new spaces. So…here’s my thoughts, which were really fired up by the Holy Spirit this morning because the YouVersion verse of the day was Acts 20:35, which says, “In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

What does that have to do with community? Take a minute or two to sit with that question. Read that verse again.

When we think of community, we often picture shared meals, deep conversations, maybe even laughter around a table, or support during a crisis. But what if it’s more than that? What if being in community is about who we choose to be, every day, in every space?

Imagine if we entered each day, not wondering what will I get from today, but rather asking:
“How can I be more of a giver instead of a taker?”
“How can I be present in a way that blesses the people around me?” (Giving more than we receive, like Paul is reminding us from Jesus words in the verse of the day!)

That mindset shift changes everything. Our relationships, our workplaces, even our churches would begin to look more like the kingdom Jesus teaches us to live out.

Jesus models a radically generous and others-centered life. In Mark 10:45, He says: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus doesn’t just talk about community… He lives it. He gathers fishermen, tax collectors, zealots, and women from every background into a family bound, not by blood, but by love and mission. He kneels to wash feet. He feeds the hungry. He sees the invisible. And He invites us to do the same.

When we talk about “community,” we’re often longing for something deep:
to be seen, known, and loved,
to not carry burdens alone,
to find purpose that stretches beyond ourselves.

God hard-wired us for connection. From the very beginning, He said, “It is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). The Church, Christ’s body, is designed to be a living, breathing picture of what it looks like to belong.

But real community doesn’t thrive where everyone is taking. It grows when each of us comes asking, What can I give? How can I serve? Who can I lift up today?

We need each other… not as consumers in a spiritual marketplace, but as brothers and sisters in a family… not for what we can get, but for who we are becoming together.

Paul writes in Galatians 6:2: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” That’s the heartbeat of community: shared burdens, mutual encouragement, selfless love.