Experiencing True Community

          This past week our students started a new series entitled We.  Here is a snapshot of this series, “In following Christ, there is one truth that most of us forget--we were never meant to do this alone. We need other people. It's critical not just because we need friends, but also because in community we understand more about who God is. We see how He is working in other people's lives. We learn things that God has taught them, and we get an opportunity to love and serve others. The WE series helps us discover the "WHY" behind community--why we need it, why we should pursue it--and why it's more than just what you do every week after a communicator speaks.”

Each week includes a discussion question/point that our parents and their students are encouraged to wrestle through together.  The first week’s discussion question reads as follows, Where do you have the greatest sense of community in your life? How has this been a good thing? How has it been a difficult thing?

Community has always been one of those things that I have absolutely longed to feel.  There is simply something about being connected to a group of people who genuinely know you and authentically care about you.  This past week I had the opportunity to discuss this with our students and recount the fact that it is no wonder that God desires for us to be in community as He has been in community with the other two members of the Trinity since the beginning of time.  Just as God has always existed in community, He instills that same desire into our lives as well.  For me personally, I have been able to experience community through my family, friends, small groups and mentoring relationships.  There have been times where the sense of community has been extremely strong and other times when community hasn’t exactly worked, which I will explore next week.

After thinking back through my life, there was one particular occurrence where I personally felt as though the greatest sense of community existed.  This happened during my sophomore year of college when I was connected to a small group of guys which consisted of me and two other young men, who continue to greatly impact my life even today.  This group really started simply because we were experiencing several challenges that college life brings to you, trying not to fall into temptation, and we all had a desire to grow in our faith.  We began to meet weekly reading Scripture, praying together, and sharing about our lives.  We quickly discovered that we were able to be transparent with one another, without the fear of judgment, pray for one another, and share advice as we had it.  By sharing our hearts with one another openly and honestly we were able to experience community in what I believe was the purest sense of the word.  We were able to share our hurts, fears, and anxieties without the worry that others would and hear about them or that we would be looked down upon because of our shortcomings.  The other two guys in the group would listen with open minds, lift the struggling one up and share about our experiences with the honest desire to see our brother in Christ lifted up.  We were focused on growth, encouragement, and love which made this a wonderful group to be a part of and allowed us to experience true community.

However, this group didn’t come without its share of challenges as well.  The first challenge was developing the ability to trust others with our joys, hurts, challenges, and apprehensions.  All three of us had encountered hurt in our lives, but the desire to be authentic with someone else eventually trumped that fear.  We knew that we could share openly and honestly allowing us to not give into the fear that had once controlled us.  The second challenge was perhaps the more difficult because as the three of us became a close knit community, others saw what was taking place and wanted to be a part of our group.  We didn’t want to seem like a click but we knew that we had something special and we wanted to keep it this way.  This became increasingly difficult as we would try to let others join but the depth of love and confidentiality never was the same with someone else in the mix.  These two other young men still serve as a constant voice of love and support in my life today and without them I shudder to think where I would be today. 

So as you examine your own life today, where do you sense the greatest amount of community in your life?  Why is this the greatest source and you do you treasure/guard it?  What makes it difficult to experience community in your life?  I challenge you to examine your life and figure out how to find true community in your life as this is what God desires for you to experience with others.