Imperfect Reality
Andrea and I have been doing community in our home for fourteen years. From the days of having college freshman at SMSU (now Missouri State University) in our living room, to having twelve house guests for the latest Catalyst iteration, we’ve tried to practice an open home wherever we are.
Most people look at us like we’re crazy. That’s because in today’s culture, while community might be valued (and even longed for), it is an elusive thing for most of us. High octane living and a kind of spiritual ADD have kept us from connecting ‘life on life’ with others most of the time.
At other times, however, I think it is something else. There is a sense of an ‘imperfect reality’ that we seek to avoid at all costs. It is a feeling that there is a perfect life/home/marriage/fill-in-the-blank that is attainable, that others enjoy, and that we are supposed to strive after. It makes us clean our house before the maid arrives, bark marching orders at our children to ‘behave’ abnormally when we are on the verge of being around others, and the half-baked smile most of us wear, even when our lives may be falling apart.
The thought of allowing people to ‘enter in’ to our lives, in all of their disarray, is something that we all struggle with (yours truly included). It is also, perhaps, one of the final barriers between desiring community and truly experiencing community.
I’m reading The Rabbit and the Elephant: Why Small is the New Big for Today’s Church by Tony and Felicity Dale, and George Barna. The authors paint the delimna as follows:
The New Testament also paints the church as a spiritual template built with living stones (1 Peter 2:5). These stones have to be cut and chiseled in order to fit together. Living a community lifestyle helps to grind us into shape. As we grow together in our relationships, particularly as this works itself out on a daily basis, tensions occur. Someone doesn’t like the way that another person handles the children. Another prefers a different style of music. As we share our lives together, we have many opportunities to learn to die to ourselves and our own preferences. This is God’s way of transforming us to be more like Jesus.
The New Testament Christians obviously spent much time together, but how can this be done in the busyness of life today? Often, people feel they can only invite others into their homes if everything is perfect - not a speck of dust on the furniture, the kids all on their best behavior, and a gourmet home-cooked meal sitting on the stove. But if that is our standard, we will never get to know each other! Why not invite another family to join you for pizza before you take the kids to the ball game? Or invite a single mom and her children over to watch a movie?
How do we, practically, release the bond that ‘imperfect reality’ has on us, in order to truly experience Christ-like community?
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What Are Thin Places?
"Thin Places" are rich in Celtic tradition. They are the places in our lives where the divine and the natural worlds come so close together that we can catch a glimpse of God. For the Celtics these places were very real - places within creation where we could physically go. The Thin Places in our own lives are those moments where the space between us & the Kingdom is thin, when we are introduced to a greater glimpse of Who He is through our experiences and through the stories of others.
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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on 10.20.2009.
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"The (Real) Catalyst Moment"
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"What Jerry Maguire Wrote"
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Joey Faulk shared their voice on 11.04.2009:
When Sarah and I were at the Glade we enjoyed coming to small group at your house with Chase, Courtney and the rest…good times.
I think you need “refrigerator friends” to help get rid of the imperfect reality bond…you know…the kind of friends that go into your refrigerator without asking…and its totally okay with you. Maybe you get things in order a few times before they can come to your normal house! I don’t know…
But I do know that connecting with others in the context of small groups is where life change happens. We are bombarded with our schedules and we often don’t consciously see the need to make time for doing life with others. Doing life intentionally with others is a concept that has to be planted and continually tended to withing a church body.