“The first service one owes to others in a community involves listening to them. Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s Word, the beginning of love for others is learning to listen to them. God’s love for us is shown by the fact that God not only gives God’s Word, but also lends us God’s ear. We do God’s work for our brothers and sisters when we learn to listen to them.”– Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We all have a longing to belong. As much as we like to be individuals, we also like people around us to identify with, connect to, share with and care for. We are not meant to be alone. We are social animals and wired for connection.

It feels good to be with people like us. Those are the people we like. So many of us are looking for groups we have something in common with.

We make friends with some people, and we like to spend time together. In healthy family settings, the family continues to be an important group, and we can even overlook some of the deficits some members may bring along. In addition we cherish our human connection with others we feel a kinship with as a gift.

Nonetheless, of course, not all family relationships and friendships can last. As we change, so do our connections with others. When we get close with a life partner, the closeness to the original family might get a little less.

That is normal and healthy, to move into your own place and give the young couple a chance to find their own rhythm and own ways. Some of us may have to live apart from the family due to distance, particularly in Bermuda, where we have many who are transient and come for a certain period of time, and others have to leave to finish their education or find their partners for life in other countries.

Especially with those changes we continue looking for groups to belong to. Look at all the sports fans, for example. I know several people who are fans of Liverpool, Manchester United, Bayern Munich, Barcelona, or one of the many other excellent clubs out there, and they try to watch their games on TV, or every so often even go to one of their games, wear their colours, and voice their support.

It does not matter that they do not live in those cities, nor do they have to have personal ties to any of the players, coaches or owners. They know the club’s scores and statistics, the names of players and coaches, and when they meet another fan, recognisable by certain emblems and colours, they already have something in common and can share more.

We long to belong. The Bible is all about that belonging. Already in the mythological stories of creation the first human, Adam, wants a true partner. While the animals may be helpful or useful, he longs for a real person to whom he can connect. So, in Eve he recognises true kinship and community.

The family and couple life is important throughout the Bible. The apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 5:28-30 (NIV): “In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Indeed, no one ever hated his own body, but he nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.”

Laban welcomed his nephew Jacob, who he had never met before, into his house saying: “You are my own flesh and blood.” (Gen 29:14).

However, with Jesus there is even a new perspective on belonging. Through him we belong to God, so much that we are called “children of God.”

Already in the famous prologue of the Gospel of John, we can read (John 1:12 English Standard Version): “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” And John repeats this in his first Letter (1 John 3:1 ESV): “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”

This is an important point. Before Christ, the closeness to God was mainly reserved to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but through Christ we all can become members of his family. Paul writes in Romans 8:15 (Good News Translation): “For the Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead, the Spirit makes you God's children, and by the Spirit's power we cry out to God, “Father! my Father!”

As children of God we become one big family, and we belong to each other. “Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God” (Rom 7:4, ESV).

There are many more images to describe the relationship between Jesus and his followers, whether it is the image of a bridegroom and his bride, or a body and its members. It is all about belonging, community and relationship. As Nicky Gumbel, a British Anglican priest and developer of the Alpha Course wrote: “Church is not an organisation you join; it is a family where you belong, a home where you are loved, and a hospital where you find healing.”

As Mother Teresa said: “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. What can we do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.”

• Karsten Decker is a German theologian with a double degree equivalent to an MTheol and MDiv. He studied in Marburg (Germany), Knoxville (USA), and Toronto (Canada) and comes from a united church of Lutheran and Reformed Churches. He was the pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Bermuda from 2010 to 2017, and after returning from Germany is now the temporary pulpit supply at Centenary Untied Methodist Church in Smith’s