***This blog was originally posted a week ago but the new site I am trying to use is giving me some issues.
It’s the thing I missed most after coming home. It’s the thing I found on the race that I had no idea I needed. Then the thing I left. Then found again back home with new people. Then left again but was blessed with out here in Cleveland, Georgia. It’s something I see. It’s what I long for.
Living out of a backpack for 11 months with 14 other people is an experience like no other. They truly are there for your highs and lows. You can’t hide. You don’t want to honestly. Being known and seen completely is something beautiful. I was never by myself and I came to love it. It was normal life to just run errands together and have deep conversations along the way. To do laundry for one another. To cook together, laugh, cry and pursue Christ.
I came home and I found incredible people who push me to be more and who I love. But I missed community in the mundane. In going to the bank, cooking breakfast, doing laundry, going to the grocery store, or just all sitting there because there’s no place to be alone.
Now I’m back in this type of community but I’m still figuring it out. I have 2 roommates but eat dinner with 7 others. We take turns cooking, cleaning, doing laundry and all the other mundane things that are 100X better with people with you. There’s always someone to talk to, someone you can go to when you need help. Community is my roommates bringing me meals while I was sick in bed. It’s people letting you borrow their car to run errands. It’s going to a bookstore and coffee shop together on your sabbath because even though you sit alone in the coffee shop to get things done, you know you aren’t alone. It’s coming home to see someone made your bed that day with your favorite snack on your pillow. It’s kindness, thoughtfulness, love.
A few weeks ago a local restaurant needed help for an evening and they are our community. They are a part of the church body. So even though I didn’t know them and had never been, I volunteered. Then I got a job offer. The incredible thing is I don’t have a vehicle out here and it’s a half hour drive away. Therefore, all of my shifts align with another coworker who lives on campus so that they can drive me. I met great people there who do life together.
Then tragedy struck. 2 of those new coworkers were involved in a head on collision. Isaiah is out of the hospital but due to foot surgery will probably not return to work for 9-12 months. His wife Meghan has yet to wake up but has been improving every day since the collision 10 days ago. But in the midst of this, I got to see a beautiful church community. Within 2 days $55,000 were raised in order to help cover expenses (that is now over $83,000!!), all of their shifts were covered by people in the community, meals were provided, Isaiah constantly has someone with him since he was released from the hospital, and family that came in from out of town were put into people’s guest rooms instead of hotels because that’s what a family does… even when they’re strangers. There was prayer at every moment, there was praise for every breakthrough. This is what the church is meant to be. Providing comfort, meals, finances, support, beds, company, and simply providing for every single need at any single moment. In this tragedy I’ve seen the beautiful heart of the Father.
One of the things we’ve been learning about in an optional Friday class I’m taking is Missional Communities. One way to describe what we learn in this class is what it means to be the church. What it means to live out of one coin bag together, to share meals together, to provide for every need, to activate each other in the spiritual gifts God has available to us. It’s counterculture, but isn’t that what Christianity is meant to be?
We constantly hear that we are the church, but are we walking that out as Christians? Are we being love to our neighbors? Not just the neighbors we live next to but the ones that are beside us every single day. At work, at the grocery store, the person we walk past in the streets. They are all our neighbors. Are we extending to them the gift of love that have been freely extended unto us? Are we walking out grace, mercy and love which is the opposite of the worlds judgement, shame and selfishness? Are we thinking of terms of “we” instead of “me”?
I’m still learning how to walk out the fullness of community but I also know that it’s one of my deepest desires. I want a family that extends beyond my blood. I want the family that is whoever is around me. When people see or hear me, I want them to see and hear Jesus. I want to be in a community that pursues each others hearts, to call each other higher in love, to be the church to one another.
In the next few days I’ll be updating about the last 8 weeks with some of the amazing things I’ve learned and also what is coming up next in this season! If you would like to support me in this journey you can find me at generation42.org under the intern donation page or venmo at musiclover17.
Love you all!
