Welcome back. You belong here.

Times like these I hear God’s voice so clearly, I just like acting like I don’t hear him. I hear God wants me to give up more and more of my comforts, time, house, personal time, alone time and to stop making excuses. I am an introvert with some extrovert moments so I like my alone time, but if we’re to become a hub for our neighbors, friends, it means I have to give up more of myself.

The other thing is sometimes I don’t like talking to people, calling them back, calling them period. Email and such is an excuse too many times to keep people at arm’s length. That’s not the man I want to be and I hear God saying, “call them back”, “talk to people”, “be more friendly”.

How do I know I’m missing the mark in this area? After reading the list “You know you’re in community when” I could only relate to one maybe two things on the list and I’ve known it for a long time and it stinks. It speaks to my selfishness. The funny thing is I really have grown in this tremendously the last 2 years, imagine how bad I was before!

Here’s the list, see how you relate to it, is this your life? It’s not mine, but I want this. God, change my selfishness.

You know when you’re in community when:

* You have a group of friends who know they can come over, or call your cell phone without feeling like they’re bugging you.
* You look at your weekly calendar and can find at least one or two times that you’ll be seeing several of them.
* The question, “How’s it going?” is quickly followed by, “how can I help?”
* The same people you call for a movie night are the same ones you call for prayer, and the same ones that you find yourself helping others with.
* You can’t wait for your non-Christian friends to meet “your people.”
* You are as excited to throw a party together as you are about studying through the book of Romans…but you still like studying Romans.
* You watch each other’s kids and are on call for emergencies.
* You can think of a few people you’ve had to suggest they go “play church” somewhere else.
* You can’t find all your tools cuz they’ve been loaned out to people in your community.
* You find yourself taking a hike together on Sunday morning instead of just going to church.
* You meet together as a community to help serve the larger church gathering or network you’re a part of. (If by chance you don’t think you should be a part of a larger congregational structure, you’ll probably heading for myopic land and you’ll be out of community all-together in a few months.)
* Everyone’s sniffed each others stinky socks (metaphor for knowing each others hidden secrets) and there’s now a freedom to just be yourself.
*Extroverts get to be extroverts and introverts can remain introverts.

*Your children feel like they are a part of the community instead of getting thrown into the basement to watch veggie tales until the big people are done talking.

*When needs come up within the sphere of your friends, your people quickly pool resources or commit time to help.

*When your house or the house of your community runs the social calendar for the neighborhood.

*When you can take a month off from meeting and pick up right where you left off.

Have a great day.

Into the future,

davidT