What a funny people we are!

In my last post I spoke of my ruminations about the concept of being missional. As of yesterday, I sensed I just better let the matter drop for a while. I felt a peace about the fact that I don't have all the answers and these things that bug me, well, it just must be me. I argued with myself that being human is quite a complicated matter (granted, not nearly as complicated as it must be to be God! :-) I told myself that I just need to push some things out of my mind and focus on life from day to day. And the truth was, I was not at a place to clearly articulate all the things that were contributing to my quandary.

Leon kindly said he prayed for clarity and strength as I struggled with my questions. Well, I had decided NOT to struggle with them. . .to just let them be. . .to just forget about my ponderings for a while. And an amazing thing happened.

It has been less than 36 hours since I made that decision, and in that time I have had 4 different people approach me to talk about their struggles with dealing with people and relationships within the church. This in addition to 3 other conversations on the same topic in the last week. It has been the strangest thing. I've hardly felt connected with anyone in the last number of months, so to have these similar conversations all in a matter of days made quite an impact on me. It was actually refreshing and helpful to me. I wasn't even able to fully tell them how helpful it was to me.

But I think I am more clear now what I am sensing and it has a lot more to do with human need and our Christian response to it. I still am not able to fully articulate it all, but I have a better sense of what areas I'd like to explore.

What impressed me most in listening to people share their experiences is how we are all alike in more ways than we like to admit. We all want to feel accepted. We want to belong. We want to be able to meaningfully contribute to others. We need each other. And even in the Christian community, we don't know how to do that or be that for one another. Maybe we want to be, or even try to be. But I'm getting the sense that we fail more often than we realize. And the funny thing is that it seems we all have more insecurities about these realities than we are willing to admit.

I'm interested in the reasons why. Why is being community so difficult? And how does it impact our ability as Christians to be missional?

Some thoughts and questions to continue to explore. Thanks, Leon :-)