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Saturday, August 30, 2014

Building True Community

So I want to climb on my soap box for a minute.  Our culture is full of imaginary community.  There are people who come together for something like a school function, neighborhood meeting, church gathering, social organization and have fake community and then leave and never connect again.  We have all these groups together, and people are the loneliest now that they have ever been.  People are lonely, pastors are lonely, my wife and I are lonely.  We go to a big church, are involved in our jobs, our kid's school and in different activities.  We are busy and we are lonely.  We go to church, we go to work, we go all these places, but to really connect with people is hard.  The reason is, we have fake community.

My wife and I have decided we want to make a concerted effort to have people over and too connect.  It's hard, and my schedule is horrible.  We attend small group and try to connect with folks there.  We have friends, some even good friends, but without "schedules activities" I am not sure how well those friendships hold up.  We have been at churches with good friends and when we went separate ways, the friendships failed.  Miss those scheduled meetings, and the community falls apart.

What happened to effort being put into community?  What happened to making room in your life for other people?  I stink at it, but I'm trying.  Are you trying to make room in your life for real community?  Are you planning to connect with others, to call or text or visit people for real community?  Are you reaching out for a purpose?  I need to do better, because I'm lonely.  Are you?

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