I need your help! I need your responses! And I am not alone in needing your input.

After an article on Monday about the followers of Jesus being community, I received this touching response from a precious member of our Heartlight.org family on my blog:

You mention our need for community and I agree. However, I am homebound. Any suggestions about how I can be part of a community?

Even earlier than this blog comment, a dear sweet sister in Christ sent me this in an email, even more fully explaining the issues involved in an articulate way:

I have lived all my life in community: church, family ... Now I am 87 years old, live with my daughter, am slowly becoming unable to walk, and am post-pancreatic cancer surgery ... Most of the time I am able to assemble with the church on Sundays for class and worship service, but I no longer have strength for Wednesday nights and Life Group and social activities. I am losing ground physically and am uneasy about the time when I can no longer worship with the saints. What do I do about communion and social interaction with Christians? How does one handle this situation? I am praying and seeking Holy Spirit guidance, but would appreciate your thoughts on this.

I am not alone in needing your help!
Now I had some quick answers, but I'm not sure any of them are any good. So instead of me firing off some answers, I'd love to get your input and ideas. While you can email me about it — phil@heartlight.org — I would prefer you post a response on the blog:

http://www.heartlight.org/thephilfiles/2009/01/14/community-for-the-homebound

Posting to the blog allows everyone to share in the ideas! However, whether emailing or posting, this is a huge issue for the Kingdom of God and one we need to find good ways to address!

Thanks,

Phil