Monday, November 19, 2007

Community

So this post is going to have nothing to do with worship ministry, but it's on my mind, so I will share.

I talked to 2 friends last night that I graduated with from USC and then lived with for a year after graduation and they both said the same thing. Both are living in places other than LA now and enjoy what they are doing (one is in grad school and the other is working), but they both miss the community we had here.

You see, we were all in a campus fellowship called TCF (Trojan Christian Fellowship) at USC and one thing that TCF does REALLY well (or did when we were there) is gives the space to have really good community. We were taught how to have good Christian community, how to resemble the early churches in Acts and my class had that. We did ministry together, prayed together, studied the Word together and had LOTS of fun.

Now we're kinda all doing our own thing and groups of 2 or 3 are still keeping in touch, but for the most part our lives are separate.

After talking to my friends last night, I realized that I miss that too. Don't get me wrong. My Christian community right now is at HOPE's House and I love the people there and I'm getting to know people slowly. But they don't really know me. We don't all live in really close proximity, don't hang out at each other's houses, don't have random 7-11 runs. Am I too old for all that stuff now?

What makes things harder is the fact that many of the people who I'm around now went to CSUN together, were in gospel choir together, etc. They have memories together. And they aren't exclusive or anything, but I still feel the disconnect a bit.

I don't think that all Christian communities need to be like TCF. It's a college community, which makes it the way it is. But I feel like there should be a standard for Christian communities. I shouldn't be doing ministry with you and seeing you 3 times a week and know nothing about your life, if you have siblings, what some of your dreams are, your pet peeves, etc. That's sad and I'm guilty of it.

We don't exactly have to be the Acts communities of believers, but if we're around each other for just about half of the week, I should know your middle name, what you want to be when you grow up and the worse thing your older brother/sister ever did to you...

Does anyone out there agree with me?

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