A few months ago, I had the opportunity to speak to a group of refugees from Africa on the topic of mental wellness. Since I am not very familiar with their culture, I began with a question: what does mental wellness mean to you?
I was stunned when every single response I received had something to do with community.
"Mental wellness means I’m able to contribute to my community."
"Mental wellness means I participate in my community."
I was struck by how in Western culture, we’ve lost our sense of community. Instead, we value independence and individualism. We value the self-made man and doing it all on our own.
These values of society have isolated us from one another. They have siloed individuals and families.
Recently, a study on loneliness revealed that Americans are more lonely and isolated than ever before. And this loneliness takes a toll on our physical and mental health. In fact, the study states that sixty percent of us or more experience loneliness on a regular basis.
Is this really a surprise?
Neuroscience breakthroughs are telling us that our brains our wired for connection. We are wired for community. We were never meant to do this life on our own. We weren't designed to.
As society around us is telling us we should be independent and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and make our own way, our brains and bodies are deteriorating from a lack of social support.
When I work with parents, I often quote the expression, It takes a village to raise a child. I tell them the expression comes from observation of cultures where the village is involved in raising children.
God designed us to live in community. It takes strength, courage, and intention to break out of our siloes and build our village.
I wonder how this parallels our faith. In our individualist society, we value individual confessions of faith. Yet in Scripture, in both the Old and New Testaments, we see repeated examples of entire families, households, and even communities, coming to faith together.
Are those conversions less authentic since they were made as a whole unit, rather than individually?
I remember when I took the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course about five years ago, there was a discussion about this very thing. A story was told about a missionary who was reaching out to a new people group. Their culture was communal - they didn't believe in individual decisions. All decisions were made as a community. The missionary, who came from a Western culture, struggled initially with whether or not a communal decision to follow Christ was valid. Finally, after seeing the many examples in Scripture, he determined that clearly God was at work in the community and who was he to stand in God's way?
Has perhaps the American value of individualism changed the face of what it means to be a Christian? After all, our faith has roots in Jewish, a culture which greatly values community. It was birthed in the Middle East. These Western ideals weren't around until centuries later.
Consider for a moment, as an example, the "sinner's prayer" or the "salvation prayer" (I may step on some toes here). If you’re unfamiliar with the term, this is a simple prayer that is often quoted in churches and Sunday school classes as the key to becoming a Christian. You say this prayer and then, boom! You are a Christian. It is built upon the idea of an individual's need for salvation.
It usually goes something like this: God, I know I am a sinner. I believe you died for my sins so I could be forgiven. Please forgive me and come into my heart as Lord and Savior. Amen.
The "sinner's prayer" has been used by evangelists, missionaries, and pastors for decades. But, where did it come from? Is it Biblical?
Turns out, the "sinner's prayer" has roots in the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s, when waves of Christians were rejecting the idea that baptism was necessary for salvation, and that faith alone was all one needed to be saved. Yet it was D.L. Moody, an evangelist in the late 1800s, who made the prayer common by leading it during his outreaches. Later evangelists like Greg Laurie and Billy Graham also used the prayer during their evangelistic outreach events.
The prayer is loosely based on Romans 10:9, which states: "If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has risen him from the dead, you will be saved."
Yet, here's the problem: we have based the salvation of millions of people on one verse in the New Testament. Which doesn't actually say, if you pray these words then you are a Christian and have a place in Heaven no matter what else you do. But isn't that what we are telling people?
I remember one time volunteering with a girls' ministry, and after class one night when we were all debriefing, one of the teachers declared, "I had all the girls recite the sinner's prayer with me tonight, so I'm happy to know now for sure that they are all saved."
I couldn't help but frown at that. Are they? Are they saved by repeating the teacher's words?
What if faith is more than repeating a few words in a church or in front of an evangelist? What if Jesus meant it when He said the gate is narrow, and many won't find it?
One of my favorite authors, David Platt, has noted this: "I'm convinced that many people in our churches are simply missing the life of Christ, and a lot of it has to do with what we've sold them as the gospel, i.e. pray this prayer, accept Jesus into your heart, invite Christ into your life. Should it not concern us that there is no such superstitious prayer in the New Testament? Should it not concern us that the Bible never uses the phrase, 'accept Jesus into your heart' or 'invite Christ into your life'? It's not the gospel we see being preached, it's modern evangelism built on sinking sand. And it runs the risk of disillusioning millions of souls."
It's not that a prayer of repentance is wrong - it's that it's incomplete. The entirety of the Bible calls us to more. The Old Testament calls us to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. Jesus in the Gospels calls us to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. He never said, go out and have people pray a sinner's prayer, He said, go out and make disciples - disciples who will follow His way. Paul said faith produces fruit and good works. James said faith without works is dead.
Not that works save us - we are saved by God's grace alone - but the works are the product of our faith.
For example, if you are given a new job, but you don't show ever up to the office, don't ever do any of the work assigned to you, and don't ever answer when the boss calls... should they still pay you?
Or, if you plant a seed hoping for an orange tree, but you never water it, never enrich the soil, never put it in the sun... would that tree ever bear fruit? Would you even call the seed, now dead and buried, a tree?
I am increasingly convinced that there is more to faith than a "sinner's prayer." And I think, a big part of it is about community. The Bible says they will know we are Christians by our love for one another. They will know we are Christians by the fruit that we bear. How are we to love each other and bear good fruit if we are isolated and alone?
We need each other.
We need community.
Love in action expressed in community - this is what the world will notice.
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