Fostering Your Community/Tribe


  • What is Community?
  • God Lives in Community
  • God Wants Us to Have Community with One Another
  • How to Find Community
  • How to Foster Community
  • Conclusion

What is Community

  • “A group of people with similar characteristics or interests, living together within a larger community” (Miriam Webber dictionary).
  • A group of people with whom we feel “at home.”
  • A group of people we do life with.
  • A group of people who can speak truth to us about ourselves and still love and accept us with our failings.
  • A group of people we can be vulnerable with.
  • A group of people with whom we can share our honest opinions concerning them in a loving way, and they would not be offended by our sharing. 
  • Ideally, a group of people who see, hear, understand, accept, and love us unconditionally.
  • A group of people we have multiple contacts with throughout the month or week in person, in addition to over texts, social media, or FaceTime calls.

God Lives in Community

  • God lives in the community of Three – God the Father; God the Son; God the Holy Spirit - Three in one in the Trinity.
  • Genesis 1:26 – “Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’”
  • "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:1-3).
  • God lives in community within the trinity. God made us in His image to reflect Himself: He has placed us in community, starting with our family of origin.
  • God wants us to join Him in His family, His community. 
  • God describes Himself as our Father, and we are His children.
  • Jesus is the Heir of God, and we are His co-heirs: “…the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ…” (Romans 8:15b-17a).
  • God wants our company so much so that He sent His only Son to die for us on the cross so that we might become family with Jesus and with God: “Our Father.”
  • God describes His relationship with us as the Bride-Groom is to the bride (the church) in Revelation 21:2.

God Wants Us to Have Community with One Another

  • We all desire a sense of belonging.
  • We desire having people who are “our people,” who we belong to, and who belong to us.
  • We are drawn to being with people who are similar to us; people with whom we have common goals, interests, or values.
  • Romans 12:4-5, and 1st Corinthians 12:12-27 describe the living church as a body with many parts, each part no matter how shiny or dull, is needed. 
  • The early church shared everything they had and provided for each other’s needs. “All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts” (Acts 2:44-46).
  • Hebrews 10:24-25 urges us to live in community so we can spur and encourage each other toward love and good deeds. 
  • There is healing in community as we pray for each another, as we confess our sins to one another. Confessing our sins to another human being who functions as God’s emissary can be emotionally healing: To hear a person representing God in declaring our sin is forgiven. “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” (James 5:16). 
  • God calls us to live with others in humility, harmony, with forbearance and in love: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (Colossians 3:12-14).

How to Find Community

  • Community usually doesn’t just happen to us, although we might be blessed and stumble into community sometimes.
  • “Birds of a feather flock together.” Find people with whom we share common interests: Recreationally, educationally, through hobbies, professionally, and especially spiritually. 
  • Similar values and principles we live by with others, enable us to have more fulfilling and rewarding lives.
  • Finding people who have similar spiritual convictions help to spur us on toward holiness and toward living for Christ, not for ourselves.
  • “Iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17). Show up as ourselves, and find others who both accept and love us, and are still able to lovingly challenge us when we might be veering off the course a bit.
  • We are judged by the company we keep. Do not compromise our values just to be accepted or validated by others.
  • Participation in activities with others with similar goals knit us with them. These activities bond us to one another.
  • When arriving at college, pro/actively seek out Christian clubs/fellowships that have similar convictions as ours and stick by these believers. Do life with them. Attend the large group meetings, join a small group Bible study, and actively participate at a local church.
  • When we first move into a neighborhood, look for a local church whose theology aligns with our convictions. Attend Sunday worship services, join a Bible study/small group, find opportunity to serve in small ways so we can experience working on similar goals/values.
  • Find community activities of interest to us and participate in them: Sustainability interests, athletic, civic, political, hobbies.
  • Look up activities at MeetUp https://www.meetup.com/ and sign up for an activity. These activities do not require commitment for continuous participation, so it could be a good starting point to find others who enjoy doing similar activities. 
  • Look for volunteer opportunities in your neighborhood.

How to Foster Community

  • When community is not readily available, foster one!
  • Look for people who have similar values/interests and invite them to join us in a low-key activity to get to know them and see if they could become our potential community.
  • Invite a few people to a small group hangout, see who shows up and go from there.
  • Invite people along to all our activities of interest and see who show up, whether we have something in common with them. 
  • Show interest toward others and see what others are into, ask if we could tag along, and invite them to similar activities that we have common interest in.
  • Invite people to join us when we see a need in the church, in our neighborhood, or community – to meet the the needs of others together. 
  • Be to others how we would like to be treated and regarded.
  • Be interested in getting to know others, to invest in them, to see, hear, understand, accept, and love them unconditionally – just as we wish others would do with us.
  • Remember: Just as we desire community, most people also desire community.
  • Instead of waiting for others to approach us, we be proactive in showing interest in getting to know others.
  • When we are introverted, we could do well to find someone who is alone and not having others interact with. Approach them and treat them the way we would like to be treated.
  • Find newcomers to the church/community and welcome them by showing interest toward them as unique individuals handcrafted by God.
  • People like to talk about themselves, ask them about themselves to get to know them. 
  • Choose to love on others while setting healthy boundaries so it would not only be us giving to others without also receiving from others: Choose vulnerability and courage, being prepared for rejection or poor matching. 
  • Just because we like someone or like to hang out with someone, it does not mean the person wants to do the same with us.
  • Do not take it personal, when interests/personalities do not match, or sometimes they even clash.
  • Be brave and try, try, and try yet again.
  • Prayerfully consider these Three Tiered Relationships: 
    1. Approach someone who is spiritually more mature than us and ask them to disciple us (to pour into our lives). 
    2. Find someone who is at similar level of spiritual maturity as us and ask them to consider becoming our prayer partner for us to hold one another accountable.
    3. Find one person who is spiritually younger than us and ask them to prayerfully consider being discipled by us - for us to pour into them. Be mindful that the person has these three crucial traits: 1) Teachable; 2) Correctable; 3) Wanting to learn.
  • To disciple one person is "duplication," while mentoring two people (or more) is "multiplication." I presently have ten spiritual daughters, who disciple other women, who disciple other women, and on and on we go!
  • We do not need to have common interests with these three tier relationships, as the common denominators here are Christ and our desire to be Jesus’ followers.
  • Ask God to lead us to a small group of people who can become our community.
  • Everyone wants to be seen, heard, understood, accepted and loved unconditionally. We can choose to get to know/see, hear, strive to understand, choose to accept and love others unconditionally. This would win us friends and help foster safe community.

Conclusion

  • God lives in constant community as the Triune God.
  • God created us to reflect Him: To live in community with one another and with Him.
  • God wants us to take part in being in a community.
  • Everyone wants to be seen, heard, understood, accepted and loved unconditionally. God has placed us in community so we can experience this and be a conduit for others to also experience this.
  • We can seek God and actively look for community. 
  • When we cannot find an existing community, we can foster one.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Healthily Indulge in Secret Pleasures Importance of Self Care The Superego, Ego and the Id  Activities to Pamper Ourselves with That Do Not Need Others’ Cooperation What are Secret Pleasures Why Secret Pleasures Unhealthy Secret Pleasures Healthy Secret Pleasures Importance of Self Care God made us as humans with our limitations. We need to recharge and refuel to function normally. We need more than physical sustenance. We need to be dependent on God for our spiritual sustenance, as He is our only source of spiritual sustenance: Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. In Him we have fullness and abundance of life. Our soul need attending to for mental wellbeing. The Superego, Ego and the Id Our “Superego” functions as a “parent,” who tells us what we ought to, must and should do.  Our feeling of guilt comes from the superego which functions as our conscience. Our “Id” is like “the little kid” in us, who wants to do whatever it wants to do, whenever it wants to do it, ...
Read more
Overthinking Outline: What Overthinking Looks Like  Functions of Overthinking Addressing Overthinking What Overthinking Looks Like  It is natural for us to recall what happened to us. It is when this recollection of what took place repeats over and over, and consumes our mind and energy, that we label it as “Overthinking.” Unable to let go of the same or similar thoughts about what took place. Replaying what went on, repeatedly. Regretting what happened, as we repeatedly replay what took place. Continual desire to re-do what took place. Continual daydreaming about or wishful thinking for how something could have gone instead. Tendency to plan for how we could do things differently going forward. Tendency to analyze or assign motives behind someone else’s words or actions. Inability to accept interactions with others at face value, as we think people mean something different than what they say. Tendency to “read between the lines,” trying to figure out what others “actually mea...
Read more
Seven Keys to Rewarding Relationships INTRODUCTION: After being married 36 years to my soulmate, we have learned a few keys to live out Shalom in our relationship. This was not the case for all our marriage, especially the first five to ten years, where we were locked in power-struggles, needing to prove ourselves right and the other wrong. It was an either me or you situation. Many times, we were enemies of one another. At one point, I yelled at him, “One of us must die for this marriage to end. It could be me or you, either one would do!” We spent (wasted) hours and days on end, trying to prove why, and “process” interactions we found hurtful.  We laugh now, but back then, it truly felt critical to us, as if our lives depended on it. This is not limited to marital or familial relationships. We can apply these concepts to all relationships. Key # 1: Do Not Take Offense – Extend Grace Instead When the other person says or does something that we find offensive, we can either take on...
Read more