Stop the "Me" Monster

The world revolves around “me.” Not us, not we, but me. The idea of individualism has so invaded our society and cultures that we all do our best to have our own unique stamp that describes us. We all have our own internet pages (Facebook, Myspace, blogs, Xanga, whatever). And sites like Myspace will let you list your own “Favs” for bands, movies, books and more! Your individualism is boosted by the originality and obscurity of your choices.



I know people who will scour the internet for hours, listening to all kinds of music to find the next indie band before they hit the radar. But as soon as that band hits it big, then they are off looking for the next obscure band to discover before everyone else does. They want to be creative as individuals because there’s a cultural tendency to vilify the corporate and conglomerate (often for good reasons) as bad, and the small, artsy and individual as better.



Biblically, there are so many reasons to see ourselves loved by God as individuals. He has created each of us with our own unique stamp-not of movies, music and books, but a stamp of DNA where our own code is written on the nucleus of each cell. He reveals His majesty and His creativity in the variety of His creation. Millions upon millions of different species walk, crawl, swim and roam this earth and declare His glory.



But the Bible also reveals another way that God deals with us, and that is corporately, or as a group. Jesus spoke to groups of people in a way that seemingly painted all those who qualified with a broad brush. It seems that Christ knew that all those who were of that particular group in a society tended to have the same patterns and weaknesses. He spoke of the difficulty of the rich to enter the kingdom of God (Matt. 19:24, Mark 10:25, Luke 18:25). He spoke to all the Pharisees and warned them as a group (Matthew 23).



We also see that in the final book of the Bible, there are seven letters written to seven churches, not seven individuals. Jesus has John write down these letters to warn the churches of their corporate attitudes, successes and weaknesses. He was treating them as a corporate group, not only as individuals.



God also makes His covenants with groups of people. The covenants He made with Noah (Gen 9) and Abraham (Gen 15, 17) are still extended to us today. These were covenants God made with His children corporately, and this pattern is continued the Sinai desert when God makes His covenant with Israel as a nation. And when Jesus declares the New Covenant at the Last Supper, He preaches it to all the apostles gathered there. It’s important to note that individually we choose to surrender to Christ, but it’s corporately that we are united in Him.



For too long we have talked, preached and discussed our individual relationships with Christ and ignored our bond together as the Body and Bride of Christ. Alone, by myself, I am not His Body and Bride. It is only as part of the corporate Body of Christ that I am part of the promise-according to Romans I have been grafted into the tree of Israel as a branch-which only works if the branch is a part of the entire tree (Romans 11).



To continue to focus on how much God loves me as an individual is important. But to ignore the ideas in scripture that I am to be a part of the corporate Body leads to many of the problems that the church is currently dealing with. This is an incomplete and unhealthy view of scripture. And if we understand that in Revelation Jesus was writing a letter to a church, if He wrote our church a letter we would be included as a part of the problem. We cannot do what we often want to do, which is distance ourselves from the weaknesses of the church while embracing the strengths.



Through my next few blogs, we’ll discuss some of the repercussions of an individualistic culture of Christianity (which is itself an oxymoron). I’ve been working on a book, so lately all my writing as gone towards that direction. Thanks for coming back.



andrew