Strange Community
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

382 days ago I arrived here at my new home in Virginia. The only person I knew within two hours was my realtor. I was indeed a stranger in a strange land. One of the first things I did was to call Abingdon PCA church to inquire about where they meet and when. I had to leave a message on the machine. The folks there thought someone was pulling their leg. Such is a hazard with my name. My family went and worshiped there, and immediately we were at home.

There is a connection between the Hebrew word Sabbath and Shalom. Both carry with them the idea of rest and peace. The community of the faithful serves as a haven of rest. We meet on the Lord's Day for rest from the weary work of spiritual warfare. The world around us finds their "sabbath rest" in literal sleep, and assorted diversions. We rise early that we might focus our attention, indeed to stand at attention before the General, who in turn feeds us with food indeed. We taste a bit of the victory, spiritually entering the throne room of Christus Victor, the victorious Christ. We see Him there, high and lifted up, and leave with the injunction to conquer in His name.

We are a strange community. We knew none of the folks at Abingdon Presbytehan, but they welcomed us. They bid us to eat with them after worship, and we talked. We were strangers, but we had friends in common. I believe you know them too, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That uncommonly glorious knowledge is what our community has in common.

It happened again soon afterward. We visited the local OP church and again were warmly embraced. We continue to have wonderful friends from both congregations. Three different churches, three different denominations, three different towns, three different pastors, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one community.

We are a strange community. All three churches have members from broad social backgrounds. Retired corporate executives sit beside unemployed laborers, college professors beside ex-convicts, southern bred gentle-ladies beside transplanted Yankee super-moms. The world is in a mad dash to define us, to determine who we are, and what we are apt to buy through the alchemy-like pseudo-science of demographics. According to these wise men my friends and peers are young, balding men with small children. According to the all wise God my peers, that group of people who have the most in common with me are those that like me have been redeemed, called out. I have much more in common with my friend Miss Libby, an illiterate 85 year old black woman who lives in a shack outside Oxford, Mississippi than I do with my unbelieving friends from college.

We are a strange community. We see each other as friends, not as competitors. We are more interested in helping the Joneses than keeping up with them. We would rather pray for the needs in our community, than find a way to exploit them. We prefer the company of our less than exciting friends to the whiz bang of the latest celluloid action hero.

We are a strange community. Our hope for the Highlands Study Center is to help us become stranger still. While all around us the church is learning to mimic the world (because they are already of the world) that they might make nice with the world, we are training for spiritual warfare, helping others to take back the ground they have given the enemy. Our purpose is to help people live more simple and deliberate, and therefore more separate lives. We are a strange community because we gain our lives by losing them, win the world by losing it and advance by retreat. Our light shines before men when we are a city on a hill, not one more carnival vying for a share of the market. We are strangers in a strange land who can lead the lost home only by living as if we are there now.

We are a strange community, at once strangers and sojourners, and yet seated in the heavenlies, already in our eternal home. We are a strange community that sings with equal gusto, "This Is My Father's World" and "This World Ain't My Home, I'm just Passin' Through." We are a community learning to out think, out live, and out die the world around us. We are a strange community, dying to live, and eager to die, so that we can leave this strange land and go home to our Father. We are a community set apart, sold out, bought with a Prize.