A question for the house... can i chip in?
Just wondered if I could chip into the debate? All this talk of growth yea/nea has reminded me of an article/post on someone's blog that was discussed back in September, which makes a point I think might be relevant (feel free to ignore). You can read the post here, but I thought I'd maybe quote the paragraph that leapt out at me:
"what does it mean to be "in community"? one of the the most lateral thoughts of the the three days was the comment made by course content provider Dave Andrews when he said,
"community does not necessarily mean initmacy or friendship"
now this took me back a few steps because i have always associated in my mind, the concept of community with words like authentic, intimate, transparent, friendship.
But the point was made, in the context of a community that is open and accepting of all others - intimacy and friendship are both mutually exclusive rather than inclusive. If intimacy is the requirement for community then those people i am not intimate with cannot be a part of my community; likewise, if friendship is the requirement - only friends are welcome.
now, if a group of friends is what someone desires, then it might be ok if no one else feels welcome or comfortable unless they are friends - and no one in our group was denying the desire for friendships that are close and intimate.
However, it was suggested that these closer groups are actually sub-groups of a much greater intentional community, where people from all walks of life are welcome especially the marginalised of society.
The implications of such a community are grand and costly. it means there will be the potential (some would say promise, and I would tend to agree) for conflict, and disharmony. but it also means there will be the possibility of reconcilliation and restoration. it means there will be cultures and languages and traditions and religions from many different corners of society; along with skills and talents and stories and dreams. there would be a multitude of diversity."
What do you think?
posted by Abigail at 1:21 pm
6 Comments:
Laul- I think it would be useful if people could know what you were saying last night, as i found it helpful.
So, we can make a distinction between community and friendship. They serve different purposes, and are mutually exclusive. That doesn't mean, however, that they can't coexist- friendship/family unit as a subset of a wider (outward focussed) community.
What i found most helpful was the way you articulated wanting to release people to be where they are at, and that what you want us to think about at the moment is taking up responsibility, rather than 'vision' for cluster/community.
If people only have the resources/desires to invest in friendships at the moment, then that is OK, as long as they can take responsibility for the parts of community that aren't taxing (organisation, admin, etc if the reaching out to new people stuff is too hard). If people are up for welcoming the stranger, then it's great if they can take responsibility for that too.
So maybe we need to redefine the boundaries of this debate. There are two strands: friendship/family relationships, and missional community. We can chose/take responsibility for participating in those two strands according to the grace we have for them. In doing so, even if it's just little jobs like being responsible for communication/notices, will release people who do have the grace for reaching out to new people to do that.
Have I understood you correctly?
10:00 am
like what you're saying abigail
10:11 am
Flipping heck! Now i can't even escape debates about community at work or in cluster! I think it's a bit difficult to know what to put as church notions of community differ from public policy ones. The defining characteristic of a community is some sort of a common bond so on this level delineating the two (friendship and missional community) can be useful but does serve to highlight the inherent conflict, i.e. some people will have a certain common bond whilst others will not or people will not perceive the bond. On that basis what is important is having the flexibility and openess as a community to allow for more people without it in someway being damaging but then you also need enough structure for the bonds to be real towards some sort of goal (such as developing relationship with God). Sorry, i've been rambling again.
11:00 am
Ah now this is where the six thinking hats become useful (shush Hugh and Pete, no laughing at me). When discussing if you try and talk about every aspect at once things get confused, but if you wear only one hat at a time (hat's being states of mind ie positive, negative, factual, emotional etc) it aids communication and allows for all the information to be shared without being squashed.
10:03 pm
like what you're saying kate
8:33 am
With this thread being a week old its no-one will probably read this comment, but anyway..
I think the observation of exclusivity of intimicy versus mission is a good one, and is described by the bottom line in Lifeshape's Triangle as the extremities of the human relationship axis. Ie: Inward/intimicy and outward/mission are extremities on the _same_ axis - any human to human relationship can be found at some point along this single dimension.
My observation of this is that it descibes a journey rather than a task or a focus, and perhaps may be a more helpful way to look at it. People aren't in or out, but getting closer or further away, it becomes about movement & direction rather than position. Vector & magnitude - golly, everything comes down to maths doesn't it. :)
The challenge to a community is, I guess, responsibility for a Godly moving of relationships along this journey (closer or further away) according to whatever the group is for/current vision. As Abigail was saying, people have grace for different parts of the axis, etc. Anyway, stop rambling me.
12:50 pm
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