Community and Intimacy:
(Disclamer – I often spell disclaimer wrong. Also, this might be a bit rambly. I also don’t know how to spell ramble when I use it as modifyer. I also like to screw up the changing of “y” to “i” when you plop a suffix on the end of a word. I also like to draw out jokes several paces past the funny point.)
The local community of Christians that I am apart of does a wonderful job of stressing and acting upon the need for community among Christians (and others). JR and myself have just finished a really good Sunday School series which envisions evangelism as the process by which we invite peregrini into our communities and build up a contextualized identity exchange by means of learning a new conceptual language, experience within a lived gospel, etc culminating with the peregrini choosing to accept Christ and adopt citizenship in the Kingdom of God.
One of the byproducts of this series was the awareness that we are horrible at doing this and that we need to make very specific and targeted changes to the way we live out the gospel. We, as a group, aren’t finished with brainstorming and implementing the ways through which we will accomplish these goals, but we are making real progress.
As we are making a more concerted effort to invite people into our comfortable communal bubble, there have been accompanying stresses upon our individual relationships. People are able to hide in community, divisions cannot be worked out among strangers. In reflecting on our community’s recent experiences and through discussing this with the ever-insightful Meredith, we decided that community and intimacy is a paradox:
Community hinders intimacy, but intimacy can only come through community.
We have decided that in order to be a real gospeling community, we must be constantly inviting, but if we are constantly inviting, we lose those intimate relationships with others in the community.
To use a small-scale example, myself, JR and Scott meet at least once a week to share what is going on in our lives, talk about video games and comics, reflect upon stuff, discuss theology, and pray for one another. We have built a very intimate relationship with one another through this process. On several occasions other friends of ours have stopped by and joined our conversations, whether it be professional acquaintances, personal friends, etcetera. While these people are with us, we are unable to share ourselves fully with one another, we simply don’t have the requisite relationship with the new comers to do so.
This does not just apply to the local assemblies of the body of Christ, Meredith and I have noticed that the same thing happens with us. When we invite friends over, or host communal events, etcetera, we loose opportunities to build and maintain our own intimacy, one of the most precious commodities in a marriage. Our challenge has been to build intimacy first, and when that tank is full, to be as hospitable as our natures allow.
Now, I am not saying all of this for the purpose of disparaging the notion of being an inviting community, I am doing do it precisely because I value such a notion! Only through invitation can we build community, only through invitation can we fulfill Christ’s call on our lives. However, we must confront and overcome the difficulties that arise in such endeavors.
How might we, as a gospeling community, maintain our intimacy while still being an inviting one? I welcome all thoughts and insights, both from members of our own community and others.
