# Four things every community should do

Yesterday I attended church service in Romania where I had visited my sister and the sermon was about the four things a (christian) community has to follow to persevere and grow. 

I first considered just posting the quote from the Acts of the Apostles (reproduced below) in the Rationality Quotes Thread but I fear without explanation the inferential gap of the quote is too large.

The [LessWrong Meetups](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Less_Wrong_meetup_groups), the [EA community](/lw/hx4/four_focus_areas_of_effective_altruism/) and other rationalist communities probably can learn from the experience of long established orders (I once asked for [lessons from free masonry](/lw/j5p/what_can_we_learn_from_freemasonry/)). 

So I drew the following connections:

According to the the sermon and the below verse the four pillars of a christian community are:

1.  Some [canon of scripture](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon) which for LW might be compared to the [sequences](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences). I'm not clear what the pendant for EA is.
2.  Taking part in a closely knit community. Coming together regularly (weekly I guess is optimal).
3.  Eat together and have rites/customs together (this is also emphasized in the [LW Meetup flyer](/lw/crs/how_to_run_a_successful_less_wrong_meetup/)).
4.  Praying together. I think praying could be generalized to talking and thinking about the scripture by oneself and together. Prayer also has a component of daily reflection of achievements, problems, wishes.

Other analogies that I drew from the quote:

*   Verse 44 describes behaviour also found in [communes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commune).
*   Verse 45 sounds a lot like EA teachings if you generalize it.
*   Verse 47 the last sentence could be interpreted to indicate exponential growth as a result of these teachings.
*   The verses also seem to imply some reachout by positive example.

And what I just right now notice is that embedding the rules in the scripture is essentially self-reference. As the scripture is canon this structure perpetuates itself. Clearly a meme that ensures its reproduction.

Does this sound convincing and plausible or did I fell trap to some bias in (over)interpreting the sermon?

I hope this is upvoted for the lessons we might draw from this - despite the quote clearly being theistic in origin.

And now the verses the sermon was about from [Acts 2 verse 42-47 of the New International Readers Bible](http://www.bibleserver.com/text/NIRV/Acts2):

  

> The Believers Share Life Together
> 
> **42 The believers studied what the apostles taught. They shared life together. They broke bread and ate together. And they prayed.**
> 
> 43 Everyone felt that God was near. The apostles did many wonders and miraculous signs. 
> 
> 44 All the believers were together. They shared everything they had. 
> 
> 45 They sold what they owned. They gave each other everything they needed. 
> 
> 46 Every day they met together in the temple courtyard. In their homes they broke bread and ate together. Their hearts were glad and honest and true. 
> 
> 47 They praised God. They were respected by all the people. Every day the Lord added to their group those who were being saved.