Community: An Unexpected Family
Posted on Sep 20, 2017 by
Sunday School started up this week and I was a part of the adult education discussion. We started the year off talking about Community: An Unexpected Family. And if you’ve read any of my letters before, community tends to be a topic I refer to a lot. And the discussion we had on Sunday was a great one about how we as individuals are as a part of community.
We referred to the verse Romans 12:3-5: "For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another."
One thing that struck me with this discussion is talking about functions. And not all members have the same function, and we need all of the different functions in order to work together as community and as the body of Christ. We also discussed that we have different functions in different communities and sometimes it’s hard to switch functions in different communities. It’s easy for me to be in facilitator mode, and make sure a meeting or discussion is running smoothly. It’s harder for me to be in participant mode. But, sometimes I need to be a participant in a community, because it isn’t my role to be a facilitator. And the community will most likely not function as well if I’m not evaluating what my function is in the community.
I think it’s important for us as individuals to identify what our roles and functions are in a community in order for the community to function at its highest level. And that can be hard sometimes, especially when we need to function outside of our normal comfort zones.
I encourage you this week to identify what your functions are in the different communities you are a part of, and try to evaluate your functions in relation to the group. We are all members of the body of Christ, and we are all a part of communities. How are we contributing to the community? What is our function?
In Christ’s Love,
Meghan Harmison
Director of Adult Ministries and Outreach