Community is an essential facet of the World Race – living and working with a team of 6-8 other people 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for 11 months. It's in community that Racers learn some of our most important lessons, and it's the lifelong friends we make that we remember with the most joy. But it's never easy.
Amanda Kerr, F Squad 2nd Generation, has learned a lot about people after traveling through Southeast Asia, East Africa and Eastern Europe with 45+ squadmates. Today, she shares some lessons about succeeding in community by setting yourself aside.
Living in constant community is one of the most challenging, sanctifying, and memorable parts of the Race. It is one of the main aspects that sets the Race apart from almost every other missions program.
Adventures in Missions calls us to be intentional: we meet every single day as a family, speak life — calling out the greatness in one another, and give constructive feedback.
The majority of my growth on the World Race has been through lessons God has taught me through community living.
The members of my team come from different backgrounds, different points in life, and encounter the Lord in different ways. Much of the time, we don’t naturally see eye-to-eye. Needless to say, living in community is challenging.
I know that God has chosen each of these people to be in my life during this season. Each has something to show me and teach me and I have something for them.
Here are a few of those lessons:
Don’t be interesting. Be interested.
We often try to win other’s approval and friendship through stories we tell. If instead, we take interest in others, listening to them and asking about their lives, we can really love them.
This shows we are secure in our identity in Christ and frees us from needing their approval.
Whatever you want to see, walk in it first.
In Malaysia and Cambodia, I had dreams for our team. When I didn’t see others putting forth the effort to make these dreams happen, I got pretty frustrated.
A friend challenged me: whatever you want to see others walk in, you must walk in it first. Want to see your team be more vulnerable? Be vulnerable first.
Be willing to be the first one in; others will follow.
Love from overflow.
The Lord spoke this to me while walking to church in Tanzania. I often felt like a failure because I wasn’t doing a good job of loving my team. It was an endless cycle of seeing a need and never being enough.
This was the problem: I was trying to love others more than I was receiving love from my Father.
In order to really love others, genuinely and with a pure heart, we must be resting in the infinite, gracious, and good love of our Father. We can only love others after we have received His perfect love for us.
Community sees the blind spots you can’t.
Our self-perceptions are limited and skewed. We need others to come along side us, really get to know us, and, in love, call us to be more like Christ. My team has had to call out fleshly things in me I didn’t know were there or chose not to recognize.
As we are in the process of walking out our salvation, we need brothers and sisters to lovingly call us to greater places and point out the things in our lives we have grown numb to or cannot see ourselves.
Law doesn’t bring about change. Love does.
It’s month ten and things on my team aren’t perfect. I like rules to be followed, spoken expectations to be met, and everyone to equally share responsibilities and duties. But rules don’t bring about real heart change; grading each team member based on their performance won’t transform their heart.
It’s God’s love and patience that bring about transformation. It was the fact that God loved me in my mess to walk me out of it that brought about change.
This is how we will see real transformation: when we humbly love one another in our mess and are patient with each other in process.
