Let me clarify by asking some questions.
When’s the last time you cooked dinner with someone in your church?
Do most of the numbers in your cell phone connect you to business associates or to friends?
Have you ever considered what it would look like to offer the spare bedroom(s) of your house to people who actually need it (them)?
All the images in the opening story—the seventh-floor apartment, glass doors overlooking the city—are real places, but the truth is it’s a three-bedroom apartment shared between five guys. It’s not very glamorous. Sometimes it’s cramped. Sometimes we have to remind each other of the rules of cleanliness. But there’s something beautiful about waking up every morning and talking about the revelations and expectations we have for ourselves and each other. I enjoy pastoring them as part of our community, but living alongside them on a regular basis makes for a depth I’ve rarely seen in most churches.
I know there might be a hundred reasons you can tell yourself why a life of consistent relationship isn’t for you: “I’m an introvert.” “I just got married.” “No one would want to live around my kids.” “I wouldn’t get any downtime.” But when are we going to recognize community doesn’t exist until we know each other outside of our duties?
Community is lived in, not taught to. If you commit to a life lived with your church, it will be more difficult. It will be messier. You won’t be able to sit in your sterile office and have someone tell you they got drunk the night before and made some mistakes. You might have to deal with it in the moment. You won’t be able to go home and separate your life from everyone else’s, and—as a result—someone might see you struggle. You will move from seeing the pain of people to living with the pain of people. You will move from telling edited anecdotes about your failures to having people see your failures. You may feel alone at the top, but when you choose to climb down, the people around you will be there—ready to share in the relationship you both need.
