why we (I) need community.

If I really sat down and thought about it, I’m sure I could write for a while about why I haven’t written. I’m busy. There are plenty of distractions. Things just get in the way. 

I also sometimes forget that what I have to say matters. It really is easier than you think to neglect the fact that people care about your life and your opinion. More than that, on more than a couple of occasions in the past few months, because of where I work and who I hang out with, I have felt like a voice in a sea of voices. Just another guy trying to be heard over all of the other people trying to be heard. If we all just keep getting louder and louder, then we’re all just standing in a room screaming. So I kind of just stopped talking. 

Over the past weekend I had the opportunity to go up to a cabin in the foothills of northern Georgia with some of my best friends from college. The occasion was to celebrate our fraternity brother’s upcoming marriage, but I’m discovering that any time you get a group of great friends like that together it becomes something more. It becomes community. 

Sitting out on the porch one night, I began a conversation with one of my buddies that started with just a simple catch-up on life. ‘How’s work?’ ‘How’s married life?’ ‘Oh, you got a new dog?’ …stuff like that. But then we began to go a little bit deeper. He started talking about how hard it has been for he and his wife to find a group of people they really connect with at a church.
“The services are good, and the pastor is nice enough, but we just want to find a group of young people like us that we can hang out with.” 

Yes, he was talking about a church group, (which in my opinion is one of the hardest things for people in their mid- to late-20’s and early 30’s to “fit in” to), but I think he was talking about more than that. I think he was talking about a group of people to share life with – a collection of other men, women, and couples to talk things over with, bounce discussions around with, or tackle hard issues with. I think he was talking about community. 

The reality is that we are created for community. We weren’t meant to go it alone. Friendships, partnerships, marriages, families are all essential to our happiness and development as people. But as Christians, I think it should go further. There is more to the equation than just proximity or after-dinner debates. Christians are called to intimate, communal relationships. To truly know one another, and to be known. 

And it all hinges on one big, huge word: identity.

…which I will expound upon tomorrow. 

My intention was not for this to be a two-parter, but as I am exhausted after this weekend, and I’m now responsible and go to sleep at a reasonable hour, the rest will have to wait. Plus, it’s probably better to just ease into things a few paragraphs at a time after such a long hiatus. My hands are out of shape and my left pinky is starting to cramp…

it’s good to be back.