My community for this year, Q Squad!
I think it’s funny the words communication and community are so similar. For me, the most beneficial and stretching part about the World Race so far has been living in community. Now, for all my Taylor University folks (represent!), we’ve heard the phrase intentional community enough times to dream about it. We talk about it, use it during orientation week, weave it into coffee dates and during interviews for leadership positions. But did anyone of us know what it looked like? Can anyone describe what living in intentional community looks like?
I’ve been stuck on Luke 11:5-13 for a week or two. It took me a while to figure out why I couldn’t move on and then I realized the big thing God was trying to teach me.
In Luke 11 we see this story unraveling where this one guy, we’ll call him Freddie, needs his friend, Alfred. Freddie runs to Alfred’s house at midnight because he needed some loaves of French baguette bread from Panera [yummm]. Freddie knocks and knocks and says, “Alfred, I need you. I have a need I cannot fulfill by myself”. Alfred mumbles out a, “Freddie, man, I am sleeping. My eyes are closed, I’m wrapped up in a fluffy white duvet that feels like a cloud, and my kids and snuggled close with a dreamy look in their eyes.” Freddie then does something the NIV translation describes as shameless audacity, and he persists. I imagine Freddie resting his head against the door, his voice lowered and he half whispers, “Alfie, I really need your help. I wouldn’t come to you if I didn’t. You’re my friend and because I know you love me, I’m shamelessly coming to your door in the middle of the night and asking you to do something inconvenient for you.” The story continues and says, “Because he is his friend, and because of his persistence, he will rise and give him whatever he needs.”
There are two parts to this kind of friendship. The first is the side willing to knock at the door in the middle of the night and ask knowing full well it is inconvenient. The second is the person who is woken up and chooses in [Don’t know what choosing in looks like? Read this before you continue on: Blog: Choosing In ]. Now let me tell you me tell you two of my own stories. One where I had to knock and one where I had to get up at midnight, literally.
- In Swaziland, our team was planning on playing Phase 10 for our team time that day. We all gathered on the kitchen floor [because when you live in community with 40 other girls sometimes you have to get creative for private space] and before we started I mustered up my courage and gusto and said, “I’m sorry I’ve been a poopy butt. I’m really struggling.” [I may or may not have said it with a little more grace than that, but I can’t be sure.] Then, the most incredible thing happened. We didn’t end up playing Phase 10 because for the next 30 minutes, my team just poured life into me. They spoke encouragement, they asked the Lord for what he thought of me, they listened, they were present with me in solidarity. My team did something a little inconvenient, they changed our plans from playing a fun game and instead met my need.
- The second story is about one of my teammates who was having a hard time with recurring nightmares that would wake her up in the middle of the night. After one morning where she had a moment of vulnerability and described the ordeal she had gone through the night before, I instructed my teammate to wake me up the next time she got a nightmare so we could pray together and combat fear and anxiety as a team. I’m usually a pretty light sleeper but the next night she came into my room and had to try and wake me up for a minute or two. She was whispering, trying not to wake other people and I kept saying back to her, I can’t hear you, I have my earplugs in, I mean DUH, why couldn’t she understand that! It hadn’t clicked she was trying to wake me up, I was still half asleep thinking it was a dream. But she had the shameless audacity to keep at it. Thankfully, it finally got through my sleepy haze and I jumped [probably more accurately rolled] out of bed and we went into the hallway. We prayed and talked and both went back to bed and slept soundly for the rest of the night.
What these two stories have in common is they required risking vulnerable communication that ended up resulted in a deeper and more valuable community life. I challenge each of you reading this to ask yourself which role you find it easier to step into, the asking for help or giving help. Why is one easier than the other? Are both hard? Why? For most of my life, I’ve always–most of the time–okay, occasionally when it’s convenient, been willing to be help and serve others but rarely have I even had the shameless audacity to not only acknowledge a need and asked someone to help me when it’s inconvenient for them.
For me the asking for help is much, much harder. In an effort to step into what I just wrote a blog about, I still need $3400 in 2 days. Fundraising for The World Race has taught me a whole ton about having a shameless audacity to ask. Asking for money is hard. It’s hard because I feel like a failure for not being able to provide for myself. But this is the point where I see Father God kneeling in front of me, grabbing my hands with a wry little smile, and saying, “That is the point. You need to start relying on other people. You need to. It’s not just a Plan B, if you will.” The Lord, in his wisdom, designed us humans to need other people because he knew if we didn’t have need for other people we would wander farther and farther away from him. It’s in our need for other people’s help that we realize over and over that ultimately we need him. We need a Father God, we need a Savior Jesus, and we need a Counselor Holy Spirit.
So, in summary, I challenge you to ask yourself the question of which role is easier for you. Then take an active step to create a better community. So start a conversation with people you consider to be your community with one of these statements,
– “This is vulnerable for me, I need you, and I’m scared to need you but I know you love me and because of that I need you to ___________”.
– “I want you to know I am going to be intentional in being whatever you need because I love you and I want you to come to me with whatever you need. And if I start to forget this promise, please remind me.”
I challenge you to realize your community shouldn’t be filled with people you get along with perfectly. People you don’t get along with usually see the things that you’re blind to. My friend Sarah wrote a beautiful blog (What happens if you don’t like your teammates) about what to do when you don’t like people you’re in community with. Because I’ll tell you a secret, you can’t just avoid them.
So go and create something magical called true intentional community starting with shameless audacious communication.
