It’s me it’s me I’m part of this Community it’s me was the words that my son, Zack was singing this morning.
Community comes up all the time in conversation. Not only around the missional church discussion but at my favorite coffee shop, Cloud City too. The conversation cafe held at cloud city Wednesday nights inevitably ends up with some banter around community and where can we create more of it.”I’m lonely!” I hear it often, I hear it in the stories and see it in the faces I encounter in my neighborhood. We are living an isolating, individual life style that keep us from knowing our neighbors and so on. Reality shows and all. We have all heard the rhetoric.
So what is it and how do we create it?
First let me define the community I’m talking about. The place where we feel we belong, a place where we are able to be ourselves. A place to be known. I’m not talking about the our neighborhood.
So what to do? What are the ways forward?
I have been thinking, community is not what I receive from being part of a group of people, it is what I bring, what I create, and give. I was standing outside a mates place in 1998 realizing I was a crap friend. God help me learn to be a good friend became my prayer. In me becoming a friend I learned what it means to be a friend. I noticed how other people were friends to me, the way they used their phones to called me back, the way they would listen became examples of a good friend. I think about community is the same way in that a friendship is one other person and a community is with a group of people.
Friendships are the basis of any community so if your not able to be a friend you will not be very helpful to a community. In the structures of communities friendships are the basis then comes families (in the most generous sense of the word) then community then neighborhoods, towns, cities and so on.
Hospitality is a huge part of being in community. Are we willing to allow people in to our places. I’m not talking about Martha Stewart style hospitality, but the kind of hospitality that allows the visitor to really know who you are. There is this little story about Jesus, right after he was baptized by John, two of John’s disciples came up to Jesus, “show us where you are staying” they asked. The story goes on, Jesus showed them where he was staying and spent the rest of the day with them. John 1
If we are to be people that create community we need to allow people to know us, to know where we live, what our bedrooms look like, how we keep our computer desktops. My bedroom at home is not always in order, If I was not married to Jen it would not be in order very often, however I think people get a good picture of who I am if they get to see my bedroom. Try it out next time people come over, give them the grand tour. Do they feel more relaxed and willing to offer more of themselves seeing more of who you are?
Openness is another part of the way Jesus lived his life. The people around him, knew when he went out to pray early in the morning. How he interacted with a woman getting water. I bet they new how long it took him to take a dump. Do we allow people to know us to that degree. Do we invite others to journey through life with us.
If you have ever been on a camping trip you know what I mean. Your fellow campers know what time you get up in the morning, know how you tended a fire, cook food. After a camping trip we feel closer to one another because we know each other. Could this be away to live in an urban environment.
Maybe as we allow people into the dark corners of our houses they will allow us into the dusty corners of their lives allowing us to reciprocate.
I want to be someone who creates community for others and just maybe it will be a place for me to be known.
Devlounge Was Here
Thomas Ryan many years ago told me a story that described the process I was in navigating from an old school christian life to a post-modern vibrant way. I have retold that story many times and more than thrice in the last month. So I thought I would share it here.
