This is a story about some people who passionately lived out Christian community. In Scripture we see that God is inviting all people to join his new kingdom community. Since Jesus came and inaugurated this new community God has been calling people to himself and all who have received Jesus are members of this spiritual community. God has been adding members to this community through the centuries. After Jesus returns God will create a new heaven and new earth where all the members will live in the New Garden as God intended. This will be the culmination of the kingdom of God on earth.
The story of Gerard Groote provides a good example of the kind of community God desires for his people now. Gerard Groote was born in 1340 in the Netherlands. His parents died of the plague when he was 10 and left him an inheritance. He was bright and studied at the University of Paris. He used his inheritance to pursue hedonism; he indulged in promiscuity and led a worldly life. He became a paid minister but he was not converted. After nearly dying and after some persuasion from an old friend he finally converted. He was a gifted preacher and began to preach against the abuses of the clergy, with which he was well acquainted!
Groote and his followers were eventually named the Brethren of the Common Life. One of the their major themes was that all Christians can seek God and become Christlike, not just the the clergy or the monks. This was a new idea for most since the clergy and the monks were considered to be in the higher spiritual “classes”. He stressed that everyone, not just the priests, can and should nurture serious spiritual growth outside of the walls of the churches. They had a high emphasis on individual study of Scripture.
Groote went even further and donated his house to some women who wanted to forsake marriage, live together and serve God. After Groote died some of his male followers did the same thing and they became the Brethren of Common Life. Thousands of others followed in their footsteps. This movement was a powerful reforming force in Europe at a time when the church and its priests were full of corruption. They reformed priests, monasteries, the education of youth and average churchgoers. Their ideas created an atmosphere that was receptive to the ideas of the Reformers about 140 years later.
“what will life be worth to me, after they have passed away?”
The power of the movement lay in the unity of love in their individual communities. It wasn’t just the women but also the men who developed intense affection for one another. Groote died of the plague after going to visit a brother who was himself dying of the plague. How many of us would endanger our lives this way? His followers continued this legacy. After Groote died and the plague returned again most of the brethren left town but left a few stayed behind to take care of their property. When the ones left behind started to die one of the brethren who left wrote back to the others “Let us go and die with them or else let them come and die with us . . . what will life be worth to me, after they have passed away?”
The Brethren fully understood their need for one another in order to grow in Christ. Without this commitment of love for one another the Brethren never could have produced the reforms they did. Their most famous piece of work is the book The Imitation of Christ which is still transforming thousands of believers today. Their example of Christian community still challenges us today.
What steps can you take to more fully embrace Christian community like the Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life?
I’ve stumbled upon your website. I haven’t had much time to read everything written here, in fact, I haven’t fully read anything on the website. I just got here.
I wish to mature in my Relationship with Christ, and the Church. I’ve spent most of life an observer of the church. I was raised Apostolic, and only recently, while attending Malone University:Christ Kingdom First, a College located in Canton, Ohio, did I discover the many parts and sections belonging to Christianity; there are literally 100’s of 1000’s of doctrines, and denominations in the church world as a whole. At that college, they did not except my rather narrow, simplified worldview of God and His relationship to man. I learned that Jesus is God. I’ve accepted that based on my upbringing, and reading the scripture.
However, today, I know that there is a place in my mind and heart of which I must arrive, and soon. You see, I’ve reached the end of something, but what? All I know is that fervent prayer, and nearly crazy sacrifice, hasn’t curtail the snowball for getting larger and larger! I literally do not have a life anymore, or a place to live, and everyone I meet seems to have it out for me. Is this Spiritual growth, or a curse? I need to move forward. I don’t want to regress to old methods and ways of knowing because lately, they haven’t been working for me.
I am here, at your website to learn what I do not already know, and to advance to a higher level in my relationship with Jesus, whom I love with all my heart. I can’t stop loving Him and He’s all I think about! I need help to mature past this seemingly mindless obsession. I wish to avoid Cults, and Religious fanaticism, I don’t want to go crazy.
Well I think you get the picture and my meaning. I’ve left my email. Please feel to contact me if you can help. Thanks.
Phyllis, thanks for sharing your heart. Sorry I didn’t notice your comment until now. So glad that you want to develop you relationship with Jesus. My first suggestion is that you look at the collection of my blog posts under the category “Key Growth Posts” (you can find this on the right hand of the home page and blog posts). As you browse through those, try to pick out one or two that might fit what you are looking for. You might especially consider https://www.meatformaturity.org/our-future-unity-with-god/ and the one that precedes it so that you know what you are aiming for. Please feel free to ask more questions after you have browsed those posts. Thank you, Phil Rehberg