“It’s my responsibility to get to know the other members of My SixEight Community. David can’t do it for me. I can’t expect someone else to make me get to know someone. I have to do it. It’s on me to say hi. It’s on me to learn someone’s name. It’s on me to invite someone over for dinner. It’s on me to go out for coffee with someone. It’s on me to support my SixEight brothers and sisters. It’s on me to care for the others God has surrounded me with. No one else can do it for me.”
I don’t know if you know this, but there is no such thing as a perfect church. It’s true. Every church is full of imperfect people. By the power of the Spirit at work in us, we are being remade, but we still make mistakes. I make mistakes.
I say that to say, if you’re waiting for things to be perfect, or just right before you become invested, you’re going to be waiting for a long time. In fact, no matter what church you go to, you will never find things in perfect working order.
So what’s the point? The point is, if you are feeling disconnected, the questions isn’t what are we going to do as a church to connect you. The question is, what have you done to connect with others.
As a church, we will do what we can to facilitate and create authentic community, but we will never have authentic community if we have to always do something to create it. That’s not what real community looks like.
Real community looks like reaching out to others because you care about them. It looks like praying for others, eating with others. Not a forced, church-created thing, but an organic, I’m going to do this because I care about this person, thing. That’s the kind of community we desire to be. A community that truly cares for one another. A community that truly loves each other. A community whose love for each other is so radical that the outside, unbelieving world takes notice.
That’s not something we can program or come up with a strategy to create. You are the program. You are the strategy.
And I believe you have what it takes to create a radical, life-giving community at SixEight. Not because of anything I have done, but because you genuinely care for one another. I know it. I can see it. I hear it. I know you care.
So, will you go to the next level and take on the responsibility and ownership of creating your community at SixEight?