The Two Marks of a Healing-Growth Community

According to those who write about these things for inpatient hospitals, there are two primary aspects of a healing community. The first is called, Communitas or grace and truth and the second, Healing Charisma or healing flow. Both point to the importance of attitudes, for out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. An attitude of grace and truth toward all needy men and women is the first essential of a healing cell.

In Alcoholics Anonymous, it is the attitudes of the sober members toward those who have not yet reached sobriety, is critical to their change. It is the attitude of the saints' toward sinners, the insiders' view of those still outside the fold; the elder brother's view of the prodigal who wants to come home but is too ashamed; it is the Pastor's view of those unable to help themselves. 

When those in the group who have been touched by God's grace extend it to others outside the group, that community is prepared to help and heal. When those who have been personally loved with an everlasting love show the same kind of unrestrained and exuberant selflessness to the undeserving, the community moves toward health. When people are accepted as they are, warts, struggles and sins intact, we can see the beginning of a family that will heal the broken hearted and set the captives free. This is the grace-applied part of a healing community.

Grace applied goes so far as to suggest that the only persons who deserve to enter the group fail the test of acceptability! Only alcoholics can become members of a group dedicated to sobriety. Even then, each member, sober or not, must professes to be an alcoholic. Only sinners may apply to become members of a church dedicated to saintliness. Anyone professing perfection should be turned away at the door. The church is not a country club that checks credentials, to make sure that the applicants are worthy of entry, but a hospital that looks for wounds to heal. Those who are certain of their purity are actually too sinful to be accepted, but those who are certain that their sin is far too bad to be forgiven get the red carpet treatment.

See Hope and Change for Humpty Dumpty for more information.