Confession for Community

A good friend of mine Caitlin, forwarded a sweet message from an awesome writer....Deitrich Bonhoffer.  He makes a quote about community and how to "realize it".  We often cry that fellowships of faith are so lame and lacking AUTHENTICITY.  Why this is so dear to my heart is because Christ has adopted His children into His family and calls us to learn how to cultivate community of faith.  This community is different than elks, kiwanis, rotary, alumni.  It is founded on the spilled blood of Jesus and if all it is, is a bunch of people we hang around with for an hour on Sunday, it is no wonder we are simply going through the motions while checking off our "to do boxes."  .  Read the excerpt from DB:

"In confession the break through to community takes place.  Sin demands to have a man by himself.  it withdraws him from the community.  The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation.  Sin wants to remain unknown.  It shuns the light.  In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person.  This can happen even in the midst of a pious community.  In confession the light of the Gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart.  The sin must be brought into the light.  The unexpressed must be openly spoken and acknowledged.  All that is secret and hidden is made manifest.  It is a hard struggle until the sin is openly admitted.  But God breaks gates of brass and bars of iron (ps. 107:16).  Since the confession of sin is made in the presence of a Christian brother, the last stronghold of self-justification is abandoned.  The sinner surrenders, he gives up all his evil.  He gives his heart to God, and he finds the forgiveness of all his sin in the fellowship of Jesus Christ and his brother."