Finding our purpose here on earth in God’s big cosmic plan can be daunting, but we’re not meant to do it alone. There are so many benefits to belonging to a community of believers, and one of these benefits is that being around fellow Christians helps us discover our purpose and be who God made us to be.

We were made to be connected with people. We can’t do this life alone with all of its tests and trials. We crave togetherness.

Community Purpose

First, the community of believers as a whole has a purpose that we get to be a part of, aside from our own individual purposes. Groups are powerful forces in this world. Big companies know this and use groups and teams all the time for optimum work. When you have mutual commitment and are working together towards the same goal, success is inevitable.

Another thing that comes from groups working together is that they develop a culture and then take that culture and pass it on to the environment around them. Only a group can do this. An individual can affect people, but alone, that person is not enough to change a culture.

Community Helps Us Discover Our Purpose

One thing that groups need to function is for every member to contribute. You won’t find many effective groups where only a few members actually do anything. The most effective and successful groups have all or at least most of the members contributing in special, unique ways.

Our contribution to this large Christian community is part of God’s overall plan for us. What’s great is that even if you’re not sure what your part in God’s plan is yet, you can just start participating and serving anywhere in your church and with other believers. Eventually you will find yourself guided and led to where you need to be.

The people around you, serving with you, will help you discover your niche as you look to God together and follow his guidance. God leads us in steps, but those steps are way easier to see when you’re focused on God’s guidance because of the people you surround yourself with.

Therefore, it’s really important to be part of a local Christian community to help you find your identity. Trying to find our purpose by ourselves is like a puzzle piece trying to find its purpose outside of the puzzle box. We are meant to work together intricately in ways we can’t even see or fathom. God understands how we work together. He sees the big picture and wants to use us in it. We need to be around the other puzzle pieces to figure out where we fit.

Community Helps Us Refine Our purpose

Once we discover our purpose and start living it, our community then helps us refine that purpose or gift.

God’s calling for our lives is never really finished, and it’s always changing. As we grow in our faith, God asks more of us. He might ask us to go deeper in the same thing we’re already doing, or He may completely change our purpose and even scenery. No matter what, though, He always wants us to be a part of a community of believers to help encourage us and to help keep us growing.

Just as that community helps us discover our purpose, they help us refine it in the same way. Think of having to navigate through a maze. By yourself, you would get frustrated, distracted, and confused. It would be very difficult and you would probably be pretty unproductive.

However, with a group, especially with people who have already been navigating through parts of the maze before you, the journey would be much easier. You would have much better focus because you’re all working towards the same goal, you wouldn’t get as frustrated or bogged down, and you’d get help and advice on where to go next. Doing life with other believers is the same way.

Community Helps Us Work Together in Our Purpose

We all have a purpose to carry out given to us by God. Still, God can use our community to help pick up the slack when needed. If you don’t fulfill the purpose you were meant to fulfill, God may move in someone else from the same community to do it. Of course, that person probably couldn’t do it the way you would’ve been able to do, because you are the best you there is. Still, God is able to work through His community to get His work done.

If we do choose to carry out our purposes together though, we have the awesome benefit of being there for each other when we endure the natural trials of life. Life already throws enough curve balls at us, but when we’re following God’s will the Bible assures us that the devil will try to trip us up and get us off track. That’s when a community of like-minded people is so important. They can be there for us to encourage us with truth and uplift us when bad things happen or we start to struggle.

In a community, we never have to do life alone.

5 Minute Mini Message on Revealing Purpose in Community

Living By Faith – free eBook Faithworks Centre, Prince Edward Island is a church where people from all walks of life come to grow in faith together. It’s not easy to live a life of faith in today’s fast-paced world. That’s why we’ve created a 17-page, 3-part guide to Living By Faith. Learn about how to strengthen your faith, follow Jesus’ command to love and serve others, and understand how love casts out fear. Get your free guide by just entering your email address below!