Exiles- Living missionally in a Post-Christian Culture (Chapter 5)

In this chapter Michael Frost looks at the development of true community or communitas. ...

There is a real desire amongst christians from all backgrounds to develop the radical community that seems to be exemplified in the book of Acts. Many have tried to develop true community, but these efforts often end up in disillusionment, cynicism and despair.

Anthropologist Victor Turner describes a particularly powerful form of community bonding that he calls communitas. Turner studied the male initiation rites amongst a particular tribe in Africa. Like many tribes, this particular group sends its young initiates out into the jungle to fend for themselves for a period of time. When they return, they will be recognised as men, but in this "limbo" stage they are neither boys nor men. In the time of separation they develop an intense form of "super-community" in which there is a profound sense of intimacy and equality which transforms them.

This sense of liberation from the previous existence, together with their later re-integration into the normal life of the community actually regenerates the life of the whole tribe.

This experience of communitas is actually what most people are thinking of when they speak of community. Yet the two are very different.

Community_________________Communitas
Inward focus________________Social togetherness outside society
Encouraging each other_______Focus on a task
Something to be built_________Experienced through transition

This might seem to be an obscure theory but in fact we have all experienced this in events such as camps, retreats, mission trips etc.

Sporting teams, theatre groups and other kinds of specific purpose groups experience it. We even experience this vicariously through the so-called reality TV shows such as "Big Brother", "Australian Idol", "The Apprentice" etc.

Communitas develops where there is a sense of purpose in a group which is greater than the group itself. "For Christians, communitas emerges naturally when we commit ourselves to a mission beyond ourselves." In other words, when the church commits itself to mission then the sense of community which we crave will follow.

As others have noted in the past the church lives for mission. So if we are not involved in mission then we will never experience church as a dynamic community.