My understanding of the church as community began at CMU (Canadian Mennonite University), where I heard its importance being expounded upon for the first time. I carried this notion into my search for a home church in south Winnipeg. It spurred my spontaneous decision to volunteer as a youth sponsor at Fort Garry Mennonite Church (FGMF) -- I wanted to really know people, and that meant getting involved. Likewise, I jumped at every chance to get involved at CMU, because I wanted to be a contributing member of the community to which I belonged.
My experiences at both CMU and FGMF have been significant in forming my understanding of Christian community. I have seen not only the broad love and concern that people have for one another, but also the active interest and specific involvement that people have in each other's lives. This has begun to open my eyes and my mind to a way of living in purposeful relationship with others. Not only that, but it also prepared me for my most intense and formative experience of community thus far.
During the last month and a half that I spent in Winnipeg, I lived on Fawcett with a houseful of fantastic roommates. For most purposes, though, my home was on Alloway with the Rempel/Nast-Kolb crew. Marcus, Jenn, and their wonderful daughters -- together with their roommate Jonathan (who is also my boyfriend) -- came to feel like a family to me. I tried to figure it out the other day: how did these people become my family? What can I learn from them about the formation and practice of genuine community?
I thought of a few things. Much of the relationship began with encounters on the sidewalk.
Marcus and Jenn demonstrated a general willingness to engage in conversation. As we chatted more and more often, it became clear to me that they don't maintain the conventional physical and emotional distance from others. I was welcomed into their house, and then into the stuff of daily life. I got to participate in painting walls and making supper. I was welcome to be part of celebrating birthdays and splash-pad visits, and eventually I even got to spend a weekend on the farm.
The key things that emerge from this experience are the broad sense of invitation, and the eagerness of the person being invited in to participate fully in relationship and in quotidian activity.
These lessons learned, then, are what I am taking with me. I have brought this understanding of community living to Chicago, where it is informing the way I live with 15 other people. Perhaps even more importantly, I will go to Paraguay with this beginning of knowledge.
This past Sunday, I went to the worship service at Living Water Community Church. Reflecting on the powerful story of Jonathan and David's friendship, pastor Sally Longquist led me to think further about intentional relationship. She pointed out that sometimes God sets us up for relationship with the most unlikely people -- people we would never choose on our own. What matters in these instances is not the personalities of the people involved, or their interests. Instead, what the success of the relationship depends on is the intentionality with which it is pursued. Both parties need to be open to the possibility that they have a lot to learn from each other. That they NEED something that the other has to give, even. When relationship is intentionally and lovingly pursued, God can pour profoundest blessing on the people involved, through each other.
As I go to meet my host family in Paraguay, I go hoping to be incorporated into their household. I go hoping to love and be loved, to need and be needed, to give and to receive. It is my great hope that they, likewise, will receive me in a spirit of invitation: a welcome into full participation in their daily living.
Above all, I go expecting to learn a lot about what it means to live in Christian community.
2 comments:
good thoughts
"...don't maintain the conventional physical and emotional distance from others."
I think that's right, DNT. Or, at least part of living the dream. Central to it is love manifest as welcoming trust. UNconventional is an important part of the story too, given what seems to be on offer in the culture in general. Michael Franti see this pretty clearly, I think.
"Learn to be skillful movers of the stones/ that block the heart and turn humans to clones./ Learn to forgive, set free the bones/ touch with your flesh, take off the rubber gloves..."
But this makes us vulnerable too, right? We wear 'rubber gloves' (real and metaphorical) to protect us from the messiness (sometimes hidden) of our own and others' lives, and from the potential harm that we (sometimes rightly) fear might come from our embodiment in community/ relationship.
Ultimately, though, this is our blessing-joy-burden, to
"Love like your life depends on it
because it does."
Post a Comment