Community and Fellowship: Benedict on Stability: Staying Put

Benedict of Nursia made stability -- the commitment to remain in one community -- one of the three vows every Benedictine monk takes (alongside obedience and conversion of life). He wrote against the "gyrovagues" -- monks who wandered from monastery to monastery, never settling, always looking for a better situation. Benedict saw this instability as a spiritual disease.

Stability does not mean rigidity. It means commitment to a particular group of people through thick and thin. Benedict knew that community is formed not in the honeymoon phase but in the long middle -- the years of ordinary life together, with its irritations, misunderstandings, and slow growth toward love.

Practical application: If you are tempted to leave your church, small group, or community because it is imperfect, consider Benedict's counsel. Is the imperfection genuinely harmful, or merely uncomfortable? Growth often comes precisely through the relationships we find most challenging. Make a deliberate commitment to stay for six more months and see what God does.