Church: A four letter word

Posted by Rachel

One of the favorite buzzwords of our college was community (well that and context!).  It's only been after college that I have understood the power of true community and what it means for my heart and my growth.  The reason I want to spend a second and chat about it is because true community is such a rare thing especially as adults, but its something that is continuing to transform my life; not to mention all of us have alluded to it thus far, so lets take a closer look.  So what is community?  If you break it down community according to scripture is supposed to be church, but unfortunately our generation feels that that is becoming some sort of four letter word, so we have changed it to community.  Community is a growing relationship with people each of whom is focused loving God more than anything and loving people more than anything else.  I've heard it put this way, Community is a group of God's people who are on mission together. Pretty simple huh?  

When I left Portland for Denver, my community scattered and even though we remained consistently in touch I often felt lonely because I didn't have any friends who were physically present I could hang out with. This was my first experience in truly understanding the power of community in my life.  Over the next 4 years I have found many people to hang out with, relate to and enjoy life with.  Quality people did not just appear in my life, I worked hard at it, I went on many coffee dates. Some people were awesome but we were too busy or didn't gel well, so we moved on, no hard feelings and now I had one more friend in eternity to look forward to.  Other people was a mutual enjoyment and we pursued friendship. And there were still other people that hit in between these two categories.  Ultimately, it was a slow process that took time and cultivation to start blooming.  

I think often as singles one of two things happen.  Either we think relationships as adults come as naturally as they did when we were in elementary school, high school and college and so when its not a fast, easy process we give up.  Or we start out with a bunch of friends and then they all get married and we figure, "hey their in a different phase of life, why would I want to continue to be friends with them."  

Let me just say, that neither response is a great one.  Giving up just because we don't make friends quickly is a horrible response.  Are we going to give up just because we don't learn a new job in one day? Probably not, especially because we need the pay check.  So what makes us think we don't need people in our lives?  The second response is also a poor one due to the fact that people in different phases of life are going to speak truth to you as a single person in ways only they can and let me say this:

you can speak truth as a single person to people in different phases of life in ways that only you as a single person can. 

Did you hear what I said?  Please don't underestimate the power of being single and speaking into someone's life.   

Over the last 4 years, I have had many, many people come and go in my life on this road to building a community here in Denver.  Most of the time it was simple life changes that moved us away from each other.  I had a choice to either stay stagnant or move forward to meet new people.  I chose the second and now I am to a place where I am meeting and enjoying all kinds of people.  While I don't have time to hang out consistently with all of them, sometime just introducing two people seeking community who are lonely is the reason I'm here.  It's a beautiful and powerful thing.  Also just as a side note, my very best and deepest friends are still hundreds of miles away from me.  The power of written word and the internet is what keeps us bound together, but that also takes work.  

So here is my challenge, go out there and change your life through community. Maybe change someone else's life in the process.  All you have to do is say "Hi, my name is..." and maybe toward the end of the conversation "You want to go get some coffee?"  Keep it simple people and have some fun!