This past weekend, I spent some time reflecting further on the comment I made at the end of my last post: “Living out of weakness … would at the very least call us to lay aside our self centered desires in order to work in community with others.” We used to describe this idea of community by talking about “teams” and the importance of being on a team where we could learn, share, pray and work together. However, we discovered over the years that working on a team was something other than just being in close geographical proximity to one another. The concept of “team” then morphed into our value of interdependence as we wanted to underscore the broader implications of “team” in terms of its participants and its process. I then entered another word into the discussion, “community” as I have sought to give voice to the idea that relationships with one another should in many ways reflect the community that exists between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that is, that community places team and interdependence back in its biblical context.
Yet, here’s my dilemma. For all our efforts to re-define our value of team through interdependence and community, it feels like we are less connected with one another than before. Many are doing good ministry work, but few are those who have others in their “community” wh
o regularly review with them their ministry and life priorities or who ask the hard questions that we need to be asked. Noah H. put it well in replying to my most recent post when he wrote: “We need others to communicate with us when we appear to be grasping for privilege and power at the expense of our brothers and sisters. We need each other to foster this “weakness strength”.” We need others to speak into our lives, to graciously question what we are doing with our time and our energies. Let’s pursue real community, not pseudo community.
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Thoughts Along The Journey 