Christian Community?

I haven't really thought about it in awhile. What I first thought of Christian Community was a more romanticized idea of it--this is a beautiful thing that is happening. But as I got more involved in communities and saw that life is, well, life, I realized how quite imperfect this is and imperfect we all are. Yet, as we grow through our imperfections in more perfect love with Christ, as he taught us, perhaps then is when the beauty emerges--that through the storm comes this lasting calm and we are further bred to endure stronger storms in the future...together. When any two are gathered together, the presence of the Lord is there with them--I heard that somewhere. I do fervently believe that individual relationships with the Creator are important; yet the meaning of life, meaningful experiences where we realize the support we have in each other are drawn out because the presence of God is with us.

Perhaps, Christian community is the epitome of do all you can, while you can, when you can, wherever you can. Beginning where you are, taking a step further to do it and gathering strength from support from each other enables us to do it but more better.

To call yourself a person of faith, to say that you believe in something is easy to say. I feel that community is important for us to actually believe. It helps us exercise that belief in unbelievable ways, in ways never thought of before. Community can bring out the very worst in you and it can bring out your very best. You can't be your best without realizing your worst. Intentionally regarding your community as an important part of your life, I feel, is a step towards becoming closer with the Creator, closer with the more real, deeper meanings of life.

While I might not live, physically, with people in an intentional way, I've jokingly and literally become apart of a variety of community types but specifically have been able to share myself and be adopted into the loving folds of a family blanket--one that doesn't make sense to our suburb cultures we grew up with. My community is a beautiful tapestry, it's old and new and has some tears and some sewn up stitches. Patches of different fabric create this beautifully awkward tapestry that hold us inevitably linked together, even if there are rips and tears here and there.

I physically have my own apartment with my own kitchen, bedroom(s), living room dining room, etc and even a bathroom! But I am so much more apart of a greater community that nourishes me body and soul and in every way I am able, am physically apart of their community, from composting my own food (some that I eat from their own garden) and returning it to their compost bins for the next growing season to sharing resources of transportation and even offering a place of retreat, I am very much apart of the community.

I grew up all over the south and have had a rural, suburban, urban upbringing and am now learning how to live on my own without my parents but now figuring out what it means to be an adult but still rely on others when my family isn't here. I'm learning to live n Detroit and form a family. I came to Detroit in August 2008 through a volunteer program in the United Methodist Church that plops you down in a city or town and tells you to form community. Well, they told me to, and so I did! My family lives in Tennessee.

Trusting in the beautiful work of God's hands led me to Detroit. Not to be cliche or tell of sappy times, but for the fist time in my life, I found something I wanted but left it in God's hands as to where I would be placed. And I'm gonna have to do it again, very soon. We'll see where it takes me but for now, I expect to remain in this community. What's led me to stay here is the passion for this place and this beautiful and broken community that comes from this beautiful and broken city.

Unfortunately, while I live in Southwest Detroit, I don't get a chance to get to know my neighbors too well. I didn't realize until recently that a couple of houses across the street weren't occupied...that is, until one's windows are all shattered and it's presently being stripped did I know. My time, job, etc. pull me towards downtown a lot where I know those who don't necessarily have neighbors, those who are on the street. I know the homeless. They have become my neighbors, teachers and part of my community. Similar to the thoughts of persons entering into community together wanting to know their neighbors better, through stories and sharing time together, I get to do that with my job and I get to know a community that doesn't entirely have a physical locale.

This could easily become a fad, but for those getting excited about the idea and rushing into it, it could quickly grow and quickly die. Perhaps the best part could be learning to live out the question of what it means to live in community, particularly with a Christian spin on it, and what it means to be intentional. This has a great chance of becoming a fad. However, it also has a great chance of at the end of it all, becoming a more sustained and beautiful opportunity for individuals. For the greater community I know, my neighbors that don't have a physical location, it's knowing these individuals willing to be different and not fit into any form of cookie cutter shape of life that brings comfort and realization that life doesn't have to be any one way, it can be beautiful. I don't know how to avoid fads from happening, but I do know how to endure; that's my hope that we all can do. I'm not one for using a lot of scripture, but Philippians has a lot of good things to say, and if I remember correctly the verse about setting my eyes on the goal is in that book and it might work pretty well here.