Day 19: Are we ready for Community?

"If you're tired of fake fellowship and you would like to cultivate real fellowship and a loving community in your small group and church, you'll need to make some tough choices and take some risks." I highly question if our church is ready to do this. I don't know that we are willing to do all that is required here for real fellowship. Without doubt I can say thing for I am part of the church and some of these requirements are frightening to me. I really don't get the feeling that the leadership is bringing the changes necessary in their lives so that the fellowship can begin.
*Cultivating community takes honesty. Usually in my own person, I want to deal with the conflict and move on. Wes is one of those people that this is the approach taken and it always works well. It is soo much harder when it is people that do everything to avoid conflict. Although sometimes someone claims it is to avoid conflict when they really hope it bothers another. I can't think of a time in my life that I've actually seen this on a church or Sunday School level. I do know that in friendships and family when it is hidden the gossip does thrive and hurt. Perhaps we all should learn how to do this so that we can know what it is like to grow closer. I think I've seen that happen on the 1 on 1 friendship levels.
*Cultivating community takes humility. If most people were asked what happened with the Pete conflict, many of them would say a problem of pride. It did build a huge wall/riff in the church. Much of that division left. The music battle is kinda in this area for we are soo focused on what we want instead of what others may need for music. The lack of service in churches is also from this for we tend to not want to serve in areas that man has labeled less important.
*Cultivating community takes courtesy. "...and being patient with people who irrateus." Humm...my inital guess here is that I'm the one that comes to mind in others when they consider who are their EGRs. (Extra Grace Required people) I like the rebels most of the time. With children, I gladly tackle the EGRs. It is much harder with adults and I tend to back away some with them. I know this is something I need to work on. One of the quotes that I read in junior high that has stuck with me said, "If we could read one another's heart, God would be relieved of much of his burden." This is very true if we could see the experiences of each other then we'd likely approach each other differently.
*Cultivating community takes confidentiality. ugh...gossip is one of the things that I hate. I hate it even more when I'm the one who is a cause of it. ick ick ick. and I hate that women are worse about it. i included in gossip things that one doesn't want shared even if good news. sometimes when someone is pregnant they may share it with a few but they don't want all to know yet so it should be kept silent.
*Cultivating community takes frequency. it sucked that I wasn't able to go last weekend. it was super to be filled in some by phillip and mandi, but it isn't the same. "This is why fellowship is so shallow in many churches; we don't spend enough time together, and the time we do spend is usually listening to one person speak." I do wish that we took more time for the relationship building as a small group. Sometimes I think that some left because they no longer felt a connection because we lost that relational time. Of course now it will seem odd to add this since it is so small, but I believe that it is something we need to happen.
hummm @ a covenant to include the 9 Characteristics of biblical fellowship that we learned in about in the last two chapters.
The Question to Consider: I've talked about this some with a few others. (perhaps that was gossip..ugh) I really think that we need to work on getting more of a fellowship environement for class time. In the church, as much as I like being in the know...I really need to start backing away from the gossip parts especially as the pastor hunting begins.