 |
| Worship photos by John Ortiz, NiN photo by Eileen Hansen, Jeremiah Center photo by Josh Jones |
"Are you visiting today or do you normally attend another service?" That is the question I've learned to ask when I greet someone who is a stranger to me on Sunday morning. Until I devised this approach, I often found myself welcoming someone who is a regular part of the Trinity/Pointe of Grace community as an outsider, just because I didn't recognize her or him. Before coming to Trinity/Pointe of Grace, all of our church experience had been in smaller communities where we knew everyone by name. The community here is different. The pictures above represent six different expressions of this community, each of which has its own character and which people may identify as their primary connection to the community: 7:45 Sunday at Trinity; 9:00 Sunday at Trinity; 9:30 Sunday at Pointe of Grace; 10:30 at Trinity; 8:30 Saturday at Trinity (Neighbors in Need); throughout the week at Jeremiah Center.
We are all part of one community which gathers in different groupings, in different times and places! This is one of the happy consequences of growth to which we need to adapt in order to continue to thrive as a community in the future. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul wrote, about the unity of the body of Christ, "Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, 'Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear would say, 'Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,' that would not make it any less a part of the body." We all understand this. But we might be vulnerable to falling unconsciously into the same kind of error Paul was trying to correct! We might be prone to think "because you gather in a different location, you are not part of my community," or "because you gather at a different time, you are not part of my community." Folks whom we don't see on a regular basis may not be a part of immediate circle of relationship but they are still part of the one large body that makes up Trinity/Pointe of Grace.
Unless we are intentional about changing our awareness, we will naturally slip into an "us-them" mindset. "Us" is the people I know and see regularly. "Them" are the people who I don't know. One way I'm trying to address this for myself is through a thought discipline. I'm trying not to use the word "they" when I refer to community members who gather at a time different from my regular slot. I try to think of them as "we" and describe them as the folks who gather at Pointe of Grace or at 10:30. It's a small exercise but potentially powerful because each time I use the word "they" about another group, I'm separating myself from them. In this era in our community, it seems worth the effort to remember that there is only one community gathering in several places and times and everyone in that community is a part of "we." There is no "them"--only "us"!
Another way to build our awareness of oneness is to follow the example of the brave souls that I've mistakenly welcomed as visitors by occasionally paricipating in the community at a time or place different from our norm.
If you have found a way to build a bridge to another part of our community so that you feel more connected--more "one" with the whole, please take a moment to share your experience so others can join you in weaving stronger relationships.
