Elusive Community: Why Do We Avoid What We Were Created For?

PRAISE FOR ELUSIVE COMMUNITY

"Jon Zens’ Elusive Community makes a much-needed contribution to a very important topic. Like all his other works, it’s a piece of superb writing, thoughtful and compelling."

—Frank Viola, author of Insurgence: Reclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom, Insurgence.org

"Elusive Community is excellent. It will benefit the body of Christ."

—Jerry and Elaine Bouska

This is great stuff. It is full of life, much needed and timely.

—Carrie Walters

"Elusive Community is very illustrative, encouraging and enlightening. The part about ‘community killers’ was striking to me. As you stated in Jesus is Family, when people find a place where a loving, protecting, and caring environment reigns, then nobody needs further explanation—they know God’s love has arrived into that community."

—Omar Vazquez, Mexico City

This is so great. I believe this message needs to be graciously shared, as there can never be enough unveiled about Christ in His Body.

—Andrew Kanonik, UK

OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

A Church Building Every 1/2 Mile:What Makes American ChristianityTick?

What’s With Paul & Women? Unlockingthe Cultural Background to 1 Timothy2

No Will of My Own: How Patriarchy Smothers Female Dignity &Personhood

Christ Minimized? A Response to Rob Bell’s LoveWins

The Pastor Has No Clothes: Moving fromClergyCentered Church to Christ-CenteredEkklesia

To Preach or Not to Preach? The Church’s Urgent Question (David C. Norrington with Repliesto the Critics & an Introduction by Jon Zens)

58 to 0: How Christ Leads Through the One Anothers

Jesus Is Family: His LifeTogether

Life Between the Bookends

Available online at: www.JonZens.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Permission for wider usage of this material can be obtained through Quoir by emailing [email protected].

Copyright © 2020 by Jon Zens.

First Edition

Cover artwork: Dotty Zens

Cover design and layout: Rafael Polendo (polendo.net)

Biblical citations are taken from the The New American Standard Bible, modified by Jon Zens, and The New Living Translation, modified by Jon Zens.

ISBN 978-1-938480-60-7

Published by Quoir

Orange, California

www.quoir.com

I would like to dedicate this book to Larry and Bev Lindseth. Our journeys have gone along together since the mid-1970s. Your friendship has been such a source of encouragement in the Lord.

Deep thanks to Mark Evans, Mary Ellen Robinson, Catherine Seebald and Charlene Wilder for their labor in making this a better manuscript.

Table of Contents

Foreword, Skeeter Wilson

1: We Are Heading Into Community

2: Community in the Big Picture

3: Why Is Community So Rare?

4: Community in America

5: Belonging Runs Deep

6: Community in Secular Culture

7: What About Christ-driven Community?

8: How Can Ekklesia be a Relational Reality?

9: Who Do You Want Walking With You in the Cool of the Day?

10: Do We Want to Build Up the Body?

11: It’s Always Something

12: A Good Dose of Reality

13: The Spirit and the Bride Say, ’Come’

14: Let Us Consider One Another

15: God’s Kingdom is Relational

16: Will We Pursue What We Were Created For?

17: Afterword, April, 2020

18: America, Land of Lost Community

For Further Reflection

In my childhood, growing up in Kenya, the differences between the rugged individualism of the primarily American missionary station I grew up in, and the surrounding Agikuyu culture were quite dramatic.

Missionaries throughout modern history have been noted for their rugged endurance and often carrying out Lone