Talking Points on Living in Community series....

On Sunday nights over the past two weeks, we have been discussing some of the finer (and harder) points of living in community, namely a community focused on and around following Jesus Christ. The first week we discussed forgiveness (and forgetfulness) and closed with an exercise where we asked students and adults to write down those situations/people/areas in their life that needed to be forgiven and forgotten. We solidified that forgetfulness by providing dissolving paper to write these notes on and placing those notes in a bowl of water, which served as our image/metaphor for Jesus Christ.

Last week we discussed accountability, the fact that we must remain accountable to each other and speak the truth in love to one another. We practiced lectio divina (a meditative practice for reading Scripture) with Matthew 7:1-5. Students and adults were then asked to write those things that serve as planks or logs in our eye, those things that prevent us from seeing the needs of others and assisting them with the love and grace of Jesus Christ. We then discussed accountability and looked at three places in Scripture where the author was writing about different characteristics of accountability, namely that it is a group effort, that it builds up or edifies the body/community in the end, and that the truth must be spoken in love. We then sawed the plank in half and hammered the two pieces together to make a cross. The cross reminded us that in Christ, we are forgiven and bound to each other in community; that when we seek to model the love and grace of Christ and center our community around Him those things that may have gotten in our way of helping each are harder to see. To the right, you'll see the picture of us sawing the plank in half.

These are the heavier of the essential elements of community, I know. I wanted to start with some of the more difficult so that we could have longer to reflect on them and think over the role they play in a healthy community. I also believe that without these, we have a difficult time of getting into deeper, authentic fellowship.

This next week (10/25) we will be discussing acceptance. Some questions I wanted to share with you that might assist you in following up with your student on these topics at home are:
-How do you see us/our family practicing forgiveness, accountability, acceptance at home?
-What are the difficulties of forgiving? What are the difficulties of holding one another accountable? What are the difficulties of accepting one another? Where can I help you in these areas?
-Do you see the benefits of these particular things when it comes to living as a family? as a community? as a student movement?

Please feel free to offer more questions you think of or stories of conversations you have shared with your students over the past month by posting them as comments. These would be helpful for all of us as we move through this journey with our students.