The Art of Sharing

Its been awhile since I've posted anything, so consequently it feels as though I have a huge backlog of entries. 

This year has been very different since I was never in one location for longer than 5 weeks. Its been like a roller-coaster, constant shifting of gears as I went back and forth from being a student to a teacher, living a laid back kingston lifestyle to a highly coordinated Torontonian life...part of a small close community to a more dispersed one...

The dispersed community. I think that is what my community is when I'm in Toronto. Toronto makes it difficult to have the same sort of community that I've come to experience in Kingston. There is nothing like living with your best friends, living in walking distance from the rest of the community where you experience and shared genuine care and love ... it's almost an utopia,.. a glimpse of heaven. Some may disagree, but compared to life in Toronto, where the busyness and distance seems to be major hurdles to overcome, you can't really cultivate a lifestyle where you can meet up with someone spontaneously, walk next door to just chill for a few hours, study together until the week hours of the night at the library, etc... the list can go on. 

Hence, there's a certain fear about adjusting back at home and experiencing some sort of withdrawal of this sweet student life, but at the same time, I want to embrace and hope that I will be able to make the most of life back at home. 

At church, they've again attempted to start small groups. There's no doubt that there is an understanding that community is a vital element in being a church and that our church especially lacks it. So I was apprehensive the start of small groups because for some reason, it has always "failed." People went, but the sense of community wasn't built. 

However, this time around, I'm hopeful... actually, I'm almost ecstatic. The new approach is drastically different from the past, to the point where it makes people uncomfortable. I love it!

The small groups will be taking on a "dialogue" style, where rather than being based on the traditional Bible study (not that they are bad! no, no), people are encouraged to reflect, listen and share. What does it mean to reflect, listen and share? huh??

Exactly. 

The small group is doing something totally countercultural of our society today, where people don't reflect, listen to what people are really saying, or share honestly and vulnerably with each other anymore. Instead, we've become extremely intellectual and factual, so much that we even approach God, the Gospel and His Word very intellectually. Not that taking an intellectual approach is bad or wrong even, but I truly believe it goes way beyond our intellect. God commands us to love Him with all our hearts, all our souls, all our strength and all our mind (Luke 10:26-28). As our North American middle-upper class society has become more intellectual, so have we, those of us who are of the same socioeconomic class but call ourselves Jesus Followers. Its become a foreign concept to really listen to the other and invite them with undivided attention without having our thoughts wander about what we will be having for lunch after or if we have something stuck in our teeth. We don't share about how we truly feel, let alone know the reasons behind what we feel. What has happened is that we've lost the ability to really connect with ourselves, God and others with our emotions, our spirits... our hearts, the very method that is required to experience genuine and deeper love.... relationships.... community.

So, this is what our church has started to attempt: learning what it means to really listen, to reflect on what we feel and the reasons for our feelings, and to share freely about things that may be completely our own and cannot be traced back to some sort of article, intellect or "I heard that..."

So one might ask, do i feel closer to the people in my small group? no, not yet. I haven't been around enough nor has the small groups been running for very long now... but I know we're on the right track.

Does it mean that everyone will have this kind of intimate and real relationship with each other? No.

But it doesn't and not everyone may experience this. However, it does create room for those relationships to take place... room for God to work, to build, to grow.

that being said... PRAISE GOD!

I know and believe that He is at work!