9 - You Cannot Do This Alone

There’s a myth embedded deeply in American culture that has made serious inroads into the way we practice Christianity. It sounds like freedom. It functions like slow spiritual starvation.

The myth: your relationship with God is private, personal, and fundamentally individual. You and Jesus can handle it. Needing others is a sign of weakness. The Christian life is ultimately a solo journey.

We’ve built entire spiritualities around this myth. And it is quietly breaking people.

What Scripture Actually Says

The New Testament doesn’t know anything about isolated Christianity. The ‘one another’ commands appear throughout the letters with striking frequency: love one another, serve one another, bear with one another, forgive one another, teach one another, confess to one another, pray for one another. You cannot do the ‘one anothers’ alone. By definition, they require community.

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Not ‘bear your own burdens.’ One another. “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” Iron doesn’t sharpen itself. It requires contact with other iron, friction, the grinding of edge against edge.

The call to community in Scripture is not optional, not for extroverts, not for people who happen to enjoy social interaction. It’s architectural. It’s built into how the Christian life is designed to function.

Why We Resist

So why do we resist it so consistently?

Real community requires vulnerability, letting people see you as you actually are rather than as you appear to be. It means admitting struggles, confessing sins, acknowledging weakness. And that’s genuinely scary. What if they judge you? So we keep our distance. We maintain the image. We stay surface-level where it’s safe.

It requires time and humility and risk, all at once. Deep relationships don’t happen casually, and when you open yourself to community you open yourself to being hurt. People will let you down. So we protect ourselves, keep people at arm’s length where we can manage the relationship without it costing us. The risks of community are real. But the cost of isolation is greater.

What Genuine Community Looks Like

Not all Christian community is created equal. You can attend church weekly, be in a small group, have many Christian friends, and still not have genuine community if the relationships remain superficial.

Real community is honest. It’s a place where you can say ‘I am not okay’ without people recoiling or rushing past it, where confession is normalized rather than shocking, where no one is pretending to have it together. It’s also challenging, not a mutual admiration society but a community that loves you enough to ask hard questions and speak truth even when it’s uncomfortable. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.”

Real community is consistent, not an occasional coffee, but regular presence over time, people who know your story because they’ve walked through it with you. And it’s purposeful. The goal isn’t friendship for its own sake, though friendship will develop. The goal is helping each other follow Jesus more faithfully.

Building It When You Don’t Have It

Some of you are thinking: this sounds right, but I don’t have it. Where do I find it?

You might have to create it rather than find it. Start with your local church, actually committed to it, not just attending. Joined, known, rooted. Look for or start a small group with enough consistency and intentionality for real relationships to develop.

Be the person you’re looking for. Want honest community? Be honest first. Want challenging community? Ask others to challenge you. You often create the conditions for the community you need by becoming what you wish others would be. And if a group feels overwhelming, start with one person. The best community sometimes starts with a single deep friendship.

When Community Disappoints You

It will. Community is made up of sinners, and sinners fail each other. Someone will share your confidence. Someone will be unavailable when you need them most.

When this happens, you have a choice: pull back and decide community isn’t worth the risk, or extend grace, recognize that you’ve also failed people, and stay committed despite the disappointment. Biblical community doesn’t mean perfect community. It means committed community. Staying when it’s hard. Forgiving when you’re hurt. Continuing to show up.

“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” Love keeps going. Love perseveres. Love covers the inevitable failures because we remember how much we ourselves have been forgiven.

The Body of Christ

Here’s the fundamental reality: you are part of a body, and bodies don’t function when parts try to operate independently. You need other believers, not just for their company, but because God has given them gifts you don’t have, perspectives you lack, strengths that balance your weaknesses.

And they need you. Your absence diminishes the body. Your participation strengthens it. Stop trying to do it alone. Find your people. Build genuine community. Bear burdens. Allow your burdens to be borne. You cannot become who God is calling you to become without the body of Christ.

Identify one person you could pursue a deeper, more honest relationship with. Someone you could ask to meet regularly with the explicit purpose of helping each other follow Jesus. Reach out to them this week.