Each One...

The next four posts will be about a dream I have for Christ's church.  Actually, I don't think its my dream, I believe its God's dream revealed in scripture and put in my heart.  The dream is simple but tremendously challenging:  that EVERY believer who makes up the body of Christ would experience, practice, and embody 4 things...

1. Each one Known
2. Each one Loved
3. Each one Called
4. Each one Sent

1. Each one Known - I believe what sets the church apart from the world is that people are known and seek to know others in a real way.  This begins with our primary relationship - the one with the Lord.  If we were to intentionally focus on how deeply we are known by God each day, it would radically alter our attitudes and behaviors.  God knows us because God made us inside and out.  1 Corinthians 13:12 describes heaven in this way - we will know fully, even as we are fully known.  There will come a day when we will know God as deeply as God knows us!  It is important to be in communication with the God who knows us far better than we know ourselves - this is how we constantly grow in self-awareness of our needs, our gifts, and our short-comings.
Being known doesn't stop with God.  I believe that it is God's intention that we be known by others.  By "being known" I don't mean recognizing an acquaintance,  I mean being known deeply and personally by another human being.  Most will only have a hand full of people who truly know them.  Some people feel like no one ever really knows them.  The community of Christians is built upon the premise that we will actually be known by other people outside our blood relatives and spouses.  This is a scary prospect for many people.  What if someone knows us and violates us?  What if someone knows us and doesn't accept us?  What if someone knows us and shares with others who we are before we want them to?  These are all reasons (among a host of others) why we don't want people to know us.  But I believe we cannot truly experience church the way God intended it until we are in a community where people knows us as we truly are.  We are called to be real, be honest, and be vulnerable about who we are with people we can trust in faith.
Being known means we have to know others.  It means that we have to have actively pursue with patience and compassion a deeper understanding and knowledge of other people with whom we share a faith covenant.  The flip side of being known is knowing someone else.  We often overlook the gravity that comes with truly knowing another person.  When you know someone, their lives become unified with yours.  When you know someone, you are compelled to care and be involved in their lives.  When you know someone, you are entrusted with a part of them that is extremely valuable and fragile.  But God intends us to know one another in the context of Christian community.
In order for the "Each one Known" element to work there must be communities of tremendous trust, care, sensitivity, and compassion that are built on the foundation of God's knowledge of each one of us.  The only way we can be known and know others is by first understanding that we are known by God.
Are you in Christian fellowship in such a way that you truly know others in Christ and are known by them? Do you realize how well God knows you and are you actively seeking to know Him more?