Bonus Post #5 – It’s All About Relationships (5-Part Mini-Series)

PART 5 – Creating Community

 

How rare is your experience of true, authentic community?

In The Different Drum: Community-Making and Peace, psychiatrist M. Scott Peck describes some qualities he's discovered about true and authentic community, such as:

•         Inclusiveness––all are welcome
•      Commitment to one another, including appreciation of differences
•      Making decisions by mutual agreement
•      An atmosphere of realism, of growth, and of safety to be oneself

Peck says, for example, that "Community is a safe place precisely because no one is attempting to heal or convert you, to fix you, to change you. Instead, the members accept you as you are. You are free to be you. And being so free, you are free to discard defenses, masks, disguises; free to seek you own psychological and spiritual health; free to become your whole and holy self."[1]

Perhaps the most startling thing Peck says is this: "The most successful community in this nation––probably in the whole world––is Alcoholics Anonymous, the `Fellowship of AA.'"[2]

 

But community need not start with people in crisis, as in AA, or by accident as Peck experienced every now and then. It can also be designed or created. In fact, Peck traveled around the country offering community-building workshops, which were guided by qualities of communication and community which he found can be simply taught and learned with relative ease. "In other words, if they know what they are doing, virtually any group of people can form themselves into a genuine community."[3]

 

Why is it that so little genuine community exists among us?  Peck says we want intimacy but run from it. Perplexing isn't it! 

 

We want to be honest and open, but we aren't willing to risk being ourselves in a group of sisters and brothers. Surely, it's something we must figure out and address, or continue to miss the most important quality of life both for ourselves and for others.

 

Are we missing out and don't even realize it? Do we know what we're missing but just let it go? Perhaps we don't know how to go about developing intimacy in the church. It's very disturbing––one of the greatest concerns I have for the Church in general, and for many congregations, in particular!  

 

I have a dream for the Church and for our congregations––a dream which I know can become a reality. And it is that we expand our capacity for creating community. 

 

Because it usually doesn't happen in a large group, it means that we need to expand the small group ministries in our congregations. Like Peck, I too have discovered that the process is rare, but rather simple. It’s what my book, Small Groups in the Church: A Handbook for Creating Community, is all about. Thank God for AA! But it need not have a corner on community!

 

[463 words]

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[1] Ibid., 68.

[2] Ibid., 77–78.

[3] Ibid., 84.