A Transparent Community

God exhorts us, saying, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). To “bear” a burden is to help a brother or sister with some difficulty, which requires us to know how others are doing. Often, you cannot assess how others are doing unless they tell you how they’re doing. Galatians 6:2 underscores the importance of transparency within the Christian community.

Within our church, the ethos of openness and vulnerability should permeate our culture at CBC. Too infrequently, we keep our Christian journeys shrouded in privacy. We withhold sharing the gospel because faith is “a personal matter.” We refrain from discussing our struggles since we don’t want others “knowing our business.” We avoid discussing about our walk with Christ because it makes us “uncomfortable.” While privacy has its place, prioritizing God’s glory above privacy is paramount. Sometimes, honoring the Lord necessitates revealing private matters, enabling others to support us in our trials. This means that we should talk to other Christians about who we really are—warts and all!

A transparent community offers freedom. In such a context, we can shed our masks, communicating our imperfections to fellow imperfect people. We’re all sinners, and we should never pretend that we’re perfect. How exhausting that is! We need each other. By sharing our shortcomings, transgressions, and missteps, we allow others to help us (1 John 5:16).

Pastor Chance