Community 04: What We Avoid in Community (featuring David Kim)

you're listening to the Rule of Life podcast from practicing the way. In each season we explore an ancient practice from the way of Jesus and its relevance for the modern era. This is season seven community. Welcome back friends. We are at episode four final episode of the community series and our Rule of Life podcast series. We're almost there. And today we're talking all about what we avoid in community. Yes, let's go there. So I want to talk about expectations, you know, if I think if we have the wrong set of expectations, we're never going to enter into this. So talk to me a little bit about the role that expectations play as we're navigating into community. Yeah. Well, I think to begin, you know, one of the most famous books ever written about community is life together by teacher Bonhoeffer. Yeah. Written out of his experience at this little kind of neomanastic community called Pink and Wald right before World War II. And it's a beautiful kind of treatise on community. And there's an idea from that book that's come to be called Bonhoeffer's wish dream. And it's from this legendary paragraph where he writes and I could not quote it verbatim. But he writes about the person who loves the dream or the ideal of community more than the actual community. Yeah. And he has this haunting line about how they become the destroyer of the community. Even if their intentions be ever so earnest and sincere. Meaning if we hold ourselves and our community or table group or small group or whatever, kinship group up to this wildly unrealistic standard of like movie level utopian perfection. And then we judge ourselves and others up against this unrealistic standards. We're actually going to sabotage the very community that we crave. Well, which is why I think Jesus centered forgiveness because you can't be in community or any long term interpersonal relationships without centering forgiveness, you know, repentance on your side and forgiveness on others. So I think it's important that we go into it. Yes, with our mind like and heart open and captivated by Jesus' vision of church as family, but not in an idealistic utopian sense where we end up actually causing damage to other people. And then once you get into relationships, yeah, expectations really matter, you know, what's the four rules, but expectations they need to be conscious, spoken, agreed upon and reasonable. And where so much relational, just take that grade, memorize it really fast and then run all relational conflict through it in community. And you will realize, oh, this is like because we maybe have different expectations that were we didn't even know we had they were unconscious or we didn't speak them. We just kind of assumed, you know, I might just assume you're gonna, you know, not have your children join us for the really in-depth part. You're going to get a babysitter or give them, you know, some Legos or whatever. And you might assume, no, kids are gonna be with you for everything. It's not right or wrong, but that's gonna sabotage. That's gonna create a conflict. Or it might not be agreed upon. You might say, hey, we're doing this and other people might not say yes to it or it might not be reasonable. You might have some wild, we all agree to some crazy plan, but it's just not doable for everybody. So setting expectations is really important and healthy relational work, but we have to come into it with a heart full of vision, but not a utopian idealism. Yeah. That does nothing but hard. We got to keep our idealism in check. Yeah. And what happens if you don't is the myth and the fantasy of the ideal community keeps you from actually living in any real community. Wow. I feel like this would be a good moment to kind of ground us back to the tell us of of this practice. You know, the end goal is to be formed into people of love. Yes. How does that end goal that tell us help keep our idealism in check? Yeah. Well, the end goal not being just to feel belonging or not feel lonely or not carry the emotional weight of life alone. Yes. All of that. Sure. But in order to become people that are pervaded by the love of Jesus, anytime you set your goal that high, I want to become like Jesus, you are going to just become painfully aware of your own shortcomings. Yeah. And deeply grateful for the mercy of God and the mercy of other people. Yeah. And loving you into a person of love. And I think that keeping that vision, that end goal in the forefront of our minds, it helps us then be able to navigate and not run away when it gets hard. Because if it if this part of our job is to love people right where they are. Exactly. And we can't do that if we keep avoiding people anytime they don't match our utopian idea. Yeah. That's really good. Yeah. I'm curious. I'd love for you to speak based on your time as a pastor, your experience there. What did you see people do to avoid these different things? What what did you notice there? The dominant pattern that I saw over and over and over again was people socialized on the west coast of America, you know, in kind of roughly our generation who just did not want to commit. Yeah. To a particular group of people, a particular night of the week, a particular way of life together, they wanted, quote, freedom or autonomy to kind of interact more ad hoc or I've become allergic to the word organic. Because what I realized, people talk about organic relationships. They mean like, un-and-planned, unstructured, and non-committal relationships. And organic is a great word if you like all move into the same apartment complex or you live in a co-housing community. Yeah. Then community can be kind of organic. You're by each other. But if you live in a city and you live in your own apartment or home, like you have to be highly intentional for any of this to even stand a chance at happening in your life. Yeah. So I just saw it over and over again. People that did not want to commit, they did not want to make the sacrifices, they did not want to give up autonomy, whether it's autonomy of time. Gotcha dinner wherever I want on that night of the week. Right. Autonomy of like morality. I'll live however I want. Nobody's going to call me on that. Like it's none of their business. I'm doing what I, autonomy of financial decisions, like when you get into each other's lives, you get into each other's lives. Wow. And a lot of us do not want that. And so then we just forget that the price of autonomy is, is lethally high. Not just loneliness and anxiety. It's often sabotage spiritual maturity. And so I just saw that pattern over and over again. And then you see the people that slowly, even if they come from deep wounding, begin to inch toward trust, who commit to a group of people, who make some mild sacrifices to be there every Wednesday night, maybe stay in this neighborhood and not move out to the suburbs or do a different or whatever the sacrifices may be, major or minor. And then you just see the fruit it bears over time. Yeah. You plot those two trajectories out over years or decades and you begin to see two very different pathways of life. The community practice is designed to be run in your church, small group, or community. It combines teaching, conversation, and spiritual exercises. All designed to help you cultivate community in the way of Jesus. If you come on the community practice, you will have the opportunity to learn and practice four key skills for life and community to help you form into a person of love. The community practice is completely free thanks to the generosity of our friends in the circle and other givers, available now at practicingtheway.org. For our final interview, John Mark sits down with David Kim, who's the executive pastor of Westgate Church and Silicon Valley and author of the book Made to Belong. With his background of moving from a collectivist culture in Seoul, Korea to the highly individualized culture of California, David went on a multi-year journey as a pastor exploring how to better cultivate connection and belonging in his community at Westgate. This led to the five practices for cultivating community that David writes about in his book and just to say it, if you've not already ordered or read Made to Belong, we highly encourage you to. It's our recommended reading for the community practice and it provides such a helpful roadmap for fostering the types of relationships that we were all made to know and create. Here's David and John Mark. In your book, you name five practices for cultivating community and, you know, hopefully finding a far deeper sense of belonging. What's just talked through those? Can you name them for us and then maybe just give us your insights on each one? In my journey, I found these five practices, priority number one, chemistry number two, vulnerability number three, empathy number four, and lastly, accountability as the five practices. And they are in order. Priority means it's not just about community, but it's really about intentional community. You know, that famous text, Hebrews 10, 25, do not give up meeting together as some of you are in the habit of doing. And it doesn't say do not give up meeting together unless you're busy, unless you have kids, unless you have back pain. I really believe that oftentimes we name and label it as busyness or kids, but the enemy of God is at work for us to not commit to people so that we don't ever build this intentional belonging where we're truly known and seen and loved. And so priority is really the first step in which we built all of our foundations. A quick comment on this that we often, when we think about communities, we stay either too short or too long. And in my context, I've seen that people tend to stay a little bit shorter than that God is inviting them to. And we often quit on each other. And I get it. Sometimes they have good reasons for it because there's a toxic leader or there are things that's really abusive and that you need to get out of. But for the most part, we, I think, leave our communities and leave our small groups or leave relationships a bit too earlier than God has intended us to be. And if you were to ask me like, how do we know when it's the right time? If you're leaving in fear, whether that's fear of difficult conversations, fear of discomfort, fear of awkward confrontations, then I believe that there is an invitation for you to maybe take a deep breath and say, huh, this may be not be the Lord leading me away, but is my fear. I think fear is probably one of the most helpful indicators to know whether I'm moving away from this community, from a sense from the Lord or from my own desire to get out of that situation. Yeah. Well said. Your next practice is chemistry. I've gotten a lot of pushback on this. It's like, hey, David, aren't Christians supposed to love all people? And that's what I believe for a long time and it's still true, but what I didn't really understand about chemistries that you can love all people and still lean into few relationships that God is highlighting in your life. And Jesus did that. Jesus had the 12 and he wasn't committing a sin of favoritism. He was able to truly bond with his inner three and he invited them to certain places and areas and moments in his own journey where he needed them the most and he was able to hold the three and the 12 together. And I think often Christians tend to feel guilty when we're leaning into the three and feel like, man, we're not doing the Christian thing, which is to love all people. And I get that there are challenges to that consumeristic kind of model where, hey, like, I'm just going to choose and pick the ones that I enjoy. This is why, John Mark, I think why I argue that priority comes first, that you first commit to the people and then you realize that in those commitments, that the folks that you might not think that you would have chemistry with, that God would do something really beautiful in that. And you'll be. That's not always the people you would expect, huh? Yeah. And chemistry doesn't come first, the world will say chemistry first, right? Figure out the ones that you might be drawn to, figure out the ones that you might feel like you have deeper connection because of their looks or because of their interests and so forth and because of their doctrines and theology and so forth and so, but I would argue that we commit to the people and then we see whether or not chemistry blossoms in that relationship. Yeah, I find that God consistently brings me into relational responsibility toward people. I do not have chemistry with or that are difficult for me. And that is very much a part of my formation and my growth in love. And I find that just like you're saying, he is regularly or occasionally highlighting people that my heart is just full of affection for and kindred spirit with and almost just like this unforced love for. And I find that God works powerfully, not that people fall into one of two broad categories, but God seems to work powerfully through both, you know, both ends of our kind of personhood and relational being. But I really appreciate you saying that because I think we need to think some of us, particularly myself, that are a little bit more duty oriented, we really can, it can be hard for us to even think that way, you know? Yeah, free us from that Christian guilt and Christian duty. And I love what Parker Palmer says about this. He says, I think community is that place where the person you least want to live on, always lives. And when that person moves away, someone else arises immediately to take his or her place. And yes, that is part of our formation into Christ's likeness and it's beautiful. But holding both of that is really an important journey for all of us. Your third practice is vulnerability, you know, St. Brunei, also known as Brunei Brown, has done so much of the last decade to, you know, advocate for greater and greater levels of vulnerability and yet I think a lot of us hear a sermon or a TED talk or read a book on vulnerability. We love it when we see, you know, she has that great insight about how vulnerabilities, the first thing we look for and others and the last thing we want to model in ourselves. I think we kind of love the idea of it, but the actual practice of it or manifestation of it is really tricky and I just think increasing the rare. So talk to us about vulnerability and what role it plays in finding belonging. Yeah, I mean, I think the lend route for that is to be capable of being wounded, right? Yes. And to open our sense, vulnerability is a wound ability. Yeah. And we've opened up before and for folks who are like, I don't know if I want to do that. And there are places where we've opened up and that's been weaponized against us. We've been gossiped upon and I get that and that's a painful experience. But what other option do we have if we continue to hide and withhold ourselves from one another, then how can we be truly known and seen for who we are vulnerability if our desire is to belong and if our desire is to be known, vulnerability is the next practice. Once we prioritize that relationship and have this incredible chemistry that God is bringing, the next step is to open up. And yes, and most likely you will get hurt and wounded, but there will be also an incredible opportunity for people to see you for who you are and love you for who you are. Yeah, you know, it seems that shame, which is something I've tried, I've been trying to think more deeply about is ultimately a fear of rejection or a loss of like relational connection. We're ultimately scared, not just that we are bad, but that people will break off connection with us and we will be alone and unloved. And you know, inner healing is ultimately the removal of fear. And I just don't know a way that that fear that is animating our shame, that is keeping us isolated and superficial and far from people causing us to prioritize work or any other thing over relational connection. I just don't see a way that it goes away apart from deep relationships where we actually begin to experience healing through people loving us in spite of ourselves, not just because of our performance, you know, so I love that you are working on this level of vulnerability. Your next practice is empathy, talk to us about what's the difference between vulnerability and empathy, how does one lead to the other in your sequence? If vulnerability is not met with empathy, then we will hide all the more. Interesting. Vulnerability must be met with empathy in order for us to deepen our belonging journey. And I've realized that when our friends, our life group leaders, our pastor say, "Man, thanks for sharing that. I see you. We see you. How are you doing?" All those phrases and words of empathy and care and of holding you well. It retrain our bodies to say, "Oh, I can trust this person. So next time, I'm going to open up a little bit more." And so empathy, strengthens our muscle of vulnerability, and so I would say empathy is the next and the most important practice for vulnerability to grow in a way that needs to be in order for us to live in such a way that we're not living under the spirit of shame for the for the entirety of our journey. And so empathy is such an important practice for that. How is the interconnectedness to vulnerability and empathy in that you can't find belonging by yourself like you have to do it with other people. And there's a dance there on a back and forth. You can't go deep all alone. You have to go deep together and that requires vulnerability and empathy. And then your final practice is accountability. Now there is a word that many of us dread hearing. Tell us more. Yeah, accountability. If we end with empathy, then it's not really a Christian community. And what I mean by that is that in our community, our goal is to be formed into Christ's likeness, that we are not just opening up ourselves and holding that pain for one another, but when it's appropriate and when we are ready that we're also supporting and challenging one another to become all that Jesus longs us to be. And I think that's important. And that's how I would define accountability. Accountability is not unfolding my agenda in your life. And I've done that many times as a pastor in the name of accountability, in the name of a biblical correction. And it was mainly more about I was just annoyed of you. And I wanted to fix that so that I would feel at ease in my own anxiety. You're not living by my preferences and you need to start. Yeah, right. But accountability and this practice is that that we're paying attention to the person that God is inviting that person to be. And the beauty is that if you've had priority chemistry, vulnerability, and empathy, then I have journeyed with you enough to know exactly what God is trying to do in your life, because I've seen the patterns. And this is the really important part. And the other person who's receiving that they have built enough trust to know that you've journeyed with me from priority, chemistry, vulnerability, and empathy. And so you have now earned the right to speak into my life. And so I now open myself to you to hear what you might have to say from the Spirit of God through much prayer and listening to your own life. And I believe that's the time when accountability is most done most beautifully. It is so painful. It's still hard. It's so awkward. But I believe that when it's done in order like that, I think we can enter into accountability with a lot more gentleness and openness and receptivity. You know, one of the lines that David said that just hit me is when he talked about how the world puts chemistry first. Talk to me about what we miss when we do that. Yeah, I loved how he framed that actually. I think I had almost the opposite like, whoa, you're allowed to have chemistry and want chemistry with another person. And I think it's such a both-and. And I think chemistry is almost the parody of the reality of God's knitting hearts together. So Dr. Jim Mwolder has this idea of what he calls spiritual adoption. And it's kind of like a spirituality or an application of the biblical theology of adoption. So in Paul's letters and the New Testament adoption is this metaphor that's used to explain the Atonement. How through Jesus we have been adopted into the family of God. We become sons and daughters of God, the Father, Jesus has become our old brother. The church is now our family. And so that's a theology. So one of the things we're talking about with the kinship group is how you spiritually apply that. How do you actualize that theology? So if you just sit at a conference with 5,000 other Christians, yes, technically they are your brothers and sisters. But you could stand in line behind them at Chipotle for lunch and you would not even recognize them, much less know their name or their story or their shame or because they're not functionally your brother and sister. They are theologically. So the way, you know, when you get a home community or a table community or a little kinship group, you are actively playing your part in actualizing the theology of church's family. So another idea from Dr. Wolder about how you kind of actualize this theology of adoption is you pay close attention to the people that God may be connecting you and your heart, your family if you have one, and weaving your lives together. So are there sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, spiritual moms, spiritual dads, spiritual grandparents, that God is connecting you to. And it's kind of like chemistry. And you may meet another person who is a follower of Jesus. And you may just feel something in your heart that is like an attraction or like a draw. Some of my best closest brothers and sisters in Jesus have not been like people I would normally have befriended. But yet there's some inner draw where God is weaving our lives together because I believe that the spirit of God is wanting to form fictive kinship groups. He's wanting to bring Christians together around tables into family like expressions of love where they can grow and make mistakes and confess those mistakes and feel shame and begin to heal from shame and cause shame and other people have to repent of it. Like just the messy and non-utopian reality of life together. I think the spirit of God is gently trying to orchestrate that in my life, in your life, and on every follower of Jesus. So I think a key step that we never move beyond, a key discernment exercise is learning to really notice in our heart. Where is the spirit of Jesus wanting to connect me? And that may be if you have a family like I do, inviting people into your family, it may be if you're single feeling like God is wanting to connect you to another family or person or a couple. But just, you know, we moved recently. We had 20 years of building extraordinary community in Portland. And then it's a very long story. We moved and we really believe that we did that under the direction of the spirit. And there are so many days when we almost want to move back because it's been so hard to go from that level of community. And every time we stop from pray, God, do you want us to move back? You said this clear sense of like, no, we are, we are meant to be here. And so we kind of building community from scratch, you know, me in my 40s now, it's brought me back to the importance of this. Just as I meet people, I'm meeting people all the time, learning to like pay attention in my heart, is this somebody, somebody I met randomly the other day. And they were delightful, but it wasn't like, I'm not looking for more friends at this point in my life. I just felt, just felt we should have them for Sabbath dinner. And it was, I just had this sense like we're supposed to be, I don't know, there was just something there. Yeah. I don't know for sure. I could be wrong. And worst case scenario, there was this for Sabbath dinner. And it's awkward. And it wasn't. It came over and it was wonderful. And now we're invited. And so there's just something there. So chemistry is good to pay attention to. We shouldn't feel like we have to bypass it. But priority is first for a reason. Yes. Yeah. So maybe say just a little bit more about that. Yeah. I think we have to intentionally prioritize this. It will not just happen. Most of us are too busy, too distracted by our phone, by our career, by raising kids, by trying to find a spouse, by, you know, whatever it is for it to just happen. And that many of us like, as you age, you remember the glory days when it could just happen when you were, when you were a student by a lot, and you're living in the dorms, and you're all around you. All the events are default. You didn't have a cafeteria as events, and you don't need to like write some rule of life and do something like just kind of there. Right. But then you get into adult life. And it's like, wow, actually the environment is the exact opposite for it's like not conducive to community at all. It's like freeways and email and jobs and responsibilities and children and obligations, all of that. And so you have to really prioritize this. And I remain shocked at how modern and people prioritize certain things and wing other things. Sure. Yeah. So it's bizarre how many people have this incredible plan for physical fitness or diet or this incredible intentionality for their career and how they want to move up in their career and get a promotion and make more money and get really good at what they do. And then when it comes to following Jesus and living in community, they're just kind of winging it. Yeah. And like I, listen, I understand we can't bring that level of focus and work ethic and intentionality and strategic planning to all of our life. There's lots of my life. Like, what am I doing for dinner next Tuesday? Winging it. Who knows? Yeah. But I don't, I think, our discipleship to Jesus and finding and forming kinship groups in the social landscape, the dystopian social landscape of the modern West. I don't think that's something we should wing. Yeah. I think David was right. We should and need to prioritize it and bring every ounce of intentionality. We have whatever our personality is. Yeah. To commit. Yeah. That's good. Practicing the way is a crowd funded nonprofit made possible by the circle and other givers. The circle is a group of people from all over the world who believe deeply in the work of spiritual formation and discipleship and give monthly to see formation integrated into the church at large. I'm John Bay from Greenwich, Connecticut, and I am a part of this community. I support practicing the way because it is the best guide and resource I've come across in helping me be more like Jesus. Furthermore, I would love to see more churches and communities practice and live the way of Jesus, and to me, there is no better tool for pastors than practicing the way. To join myself and others in the circle, or to share a one-time gift, please visit practicingtheway.org/give. We want to introduce you to Angel, Ben, Jenny, and Max, and their regular monthly rhythm, these four gather around a table as a part of a recovery community at Bridgetown Church in Portland. For this group and this recovery community as a whole, vulnerability and accountability aren't just nice features of their relationships. They're necessary practices they choose for their personal healing and growth. Here's Angel with her story of coming out of addiction and into this community. When I was five, my parents got a divorce and I felt from a young age that I had to make sure everybody felt okay. But that ultimately led to making sure that everyone was okay when I wasn't okay. And so I started using drugs and alcohol around the age of 13, off and on, and I didn't know how to stop. All that led to me falling into prostitution and dealing drugs and doing everything that I said I would never do when I was a little girl. But because of the trauma and the pain and not knowing how to ask for help, not knowing how to share my feelings with people, led to my life of an off and on addiction until I was 29 years old. One day in July of 2012, I was laying on my dad's couch feeling the status I'd ever felt, the loneliest I'd ever felt. My body was shutting down from all of the drug and alcohol use. And I remember laying there yelling like, "God, if you don't do something, I'm going to die." And it was the very next day that my older sister, she called and I confessed everything. And it was three days later that I was in a faith-based treatment center in North Portland. And that's how I got saved and got sober. And I've been sober ever since July 2012. There's people in recovery and you wouldn't know it. And in the church, there's generally not space to come forward and say, "Hey, like I either am desiring to stop using drugs or alcohol or I have, and I just need people around me who like identify with that." And so the bridge town recovery community started out of the inspiration that God gave me for like helping those within his church to like find belonging and find a place within the walls of the church where we could be known and know each other in a deeper level. That is like safety for people in recovery. We've discussed stuff within the bridge town recovery community that touch on super deep and dark topics. We've been extremely vulnerable and extremely honest with each other and about the nature of our how we came up, the types of ways we abuse our bodies, the way that we abuse other people within our addiction. I think that we've brushed on topics that I've almost never even heard get touched on in just a traditional AA meeting because we're all followers of Christ, so we all know that we're forgiven. When you allow Jesus in all the way and like who could heal us the deepest but our father right. I think one of the big values that the recovery community holds is like this admission of like being broken as a starting place. We have to be able to admit in the church that we haven't arrived. And so I think that like that is a huge principle that we all share and come around a table together with this like starting place of like yeah we're really broken and that's okay here. And that actually is something Jesus loves to use and transform and like his powers actually mean perfect through that. One thing about this being part of bridge town recovery group right where you're talking about vulnerability. It's been really cool to see how that's played out in the other areas of my life outside of bridge town recovery group like at work or with family or in my personal relationships like you have this community group for our own sobriety and our own vulnerability. But it also turns in a sense sort of as a ministry and encouragement to the outside world. When I finally was able to come out and say I have a problem I was able to just open my heart and open their hearts to just accepting me for all of these things that I've done and it wasn't until that I could do that that I actually was able to experience the love of family community and from Jesus all in that time. So I don't think it matters who you are like it just if you're able to be open and honest with anybody that you have a relationship with you can experience that healing and open up the doors for them to also become vulnerable and get healing if that's what the other people in your life need to. One of my experiences in community is that not everyone has the same starting point when it comes to vulnerability. Someone could be sharing something in vulnerability that is really vulnerable for them. But I'm like that's just me describing what I did that afternoon or whatever. It's been years. For some people just saying they had a hard days like a leap forward. Exactly. Yeah. So I'm curious if you could just talk about that experience a little bit of like how do we in community lovingly draw people into more? How do we steward people's vulnerability? You know, one Corinthians 13, the description of love and Paul's letter to the Corinthians, the first descriptor is love is, you know, patient, patient. I recently read an academic work called the patient ferment of the early church, beautiful read, where the scholar pointed out that the first virtue that the early Christians ever wrote a treatise on, like that was so important they decided to write up basically a theological work on this virtue was patience. And they wrote three or four early treatises on this particular virtue. Patience, not humility, not courage, not kindness, patience. And he just writes about how integral patience was to the ethos of the first Christians. Wow. I think we live in a very impatient age or another word for that is hurried age. And relationships are painfully slow. Building trust and vulnerability is painfully slow. Building family. I mean, we took 20 years, we had incredible community important and but then I look back and like, oh, yeah, it was a time of 20 years of work and of investment. And a lot of us just, man, we're so conditioned by technology and Amazon and, you know, door dash to just expect we swipe our thumb and we get what we want in a few hours or a few minutes. And people do not work at the speed of the internet. True. Yeah. Well, unless it's like 90s AOL. Yeah. You remember that. And so I think, honestly, I just think a lot of it's about slowing down, learning to be patient. I'm speaking to myself here, learning to just let relationships grow at the human pace. Somebody said to me recently, we're in the process of starting a community and trying to figure out what to do next. And his advice was move at the pace of relationship. I thought, oh wow, like there's a pace that certain relationships can handle. And if you go too slow, they'll stagnate. But if you go too fast, you'll lose people. Yeah, yeah. And so move at the pace of relationships. That's good. And the interview, David, talks about this. That there are moments where, you know, because of life change or whatever community, you're experiencing that. You're not in the same community that you were in. Yeah. Is it ever okay to leave a community, you know, I think that sometimes the metaphor of a family, there's a kind of pressure. Yes. Is it okay to leave? Yeah. Well, if some of us are on the, hey, we bail and don't commit side, yeah, other people, loyalty is not a virtue. Right. Right, it can actually be a flaw. Yeah. And so often we stayed too long. And again, this just calls for what in the Christian imagination or vernacular is called discernment, you know? And yes, there is a time to leave for community, leave a community, leave a church even. I think we should be slow to do that. Yeah. Not fast. Yeah. I think we should err on the side of staying too long, not bailing too fast. I think the important thing is to not just know that there is a time to leave, but if there is a time to leave, how to leave in a healthy way. Yeah. So I would say one, like, leave slowly. Yeah. Two, if you leave, bless and do not curse. Hmm. So if you go away cursing, even if, even if, you know, your mind's interpretation of reality is correct. And man, it's really messed up and you need to get out of there. Then can you bless and not curse? Can you go away with no gossip, with no resentment, with no bitterness? Can you clean that out of your heart through a prayerful, healthy path? And then, you know, third, can you make that decision in community? So I'm a firm believer in communal discernment. So it's so sad when somebody comes to a community and just says, "We're out." I talked to my wife about it. We prayed for moving to this other city. I see that all the time. I was like, "Sure." You did not even, you don't even have a framework that God comes to direct our life through our community. And that if, unless if your community is hyper-toxic, any semblance of a healthy community will confirm and/or correct what you sense the Spirit of God is doing. And it will only sound out of left field if they're in sin or you're in sin. If both of you are even like, you know, in the general ballpark of following Jesus, it will, a community will confirm and correct. And will really help you know how God is coming to direct your life. So yeah, I would say if you're going to leave, leave slow, less as you go, and make the very decision with trusted counselors. And if that's not the community you're leaving, you have to find other trusted counselors because of dynamics are okay. As opposed to most people leave fast, they curse on the way out the door, and they make the decision by themselves. And so yeah, there's a time to leave. - That's good. - And we left Portland. - Sure. - And that was a decision that we made over a lot of years. We are whole community that we were so close to, our elders that we were, we all made that decision together. - Yeah. - And so now on days when I think, man, where we out of our mind to leave behind that, to move forward, to follow what we felt was God's direction. I thought, no, the best people in my life all said yes. - Wow, that's really helpful to even think about of like, 'cause yeah, you make decisions and you get to the thing that you thought was gonna be better than where you were and you can be in this spiral. - And then it's not. - Yeah, and then it's not. - Yeah, and I've not thought about how community plays a role even in that. Of like, oh no, it reminds, it's strengthens. Yeah, where you are, that's really good. I'd love to just talk a little bit about, you know, how do you start, you know? So someone's listening to this, they're like, I'm in, I want to experience this in this way. What's a good place to start? How do you know who the people are that you should jump into with this? - Well, I mean, back to what we were saying a few minutes ago about Bonhoeffer's wish dream. - Yeah. - Is you kind of breathe the exhale, the idealism. - Yes. - And you start where you are. - Okay. - And so, you know, there's a principle in psychology of 10% where, you know, sports psychologists in particular, we'll say, hey, if an athlete tries to do something and they fail, it's probably because they were taking too large of a first step. So growth athletically or emotionally or relationally, I think psychologists would say normally comes at around 10% outside our current capacity. So weight training would be an easy example. - Sure. - If you can bench press a hundred pounds, then you shouldn't try to bench press 150 next. You should probably try 110. And that is like really hard, but you will hopefully grow as a result. And there's something like that with our relational muscle and our emotional muscle and our spiritual muscles. So I think, how can you move your life, your relational connections 10% forward from where you are toward this vision of church as a family kinship group around the table, living life together, vulnerability, empathy, accountability. Hey, can you move 10% from where you're at right now? - Right. - For you, that may mean inviting a new friend out for coffee and listening to her story. It may mean and where we suggest most people start is just sharing a weekly meal with a few other people. But that might be too much of a first step. You might need to work up to that. That might be three to six months from now, okay? Or it might be like, let's buy a ranch together and all move on to the, whatever. - Sure. - You know, like it might be some radical thing. So what's the next step for you? Start small, but just take the next step than the next and then the next. - Well, it's a way to kind of help us navigate next step where to start. We've got a guided reflection in our show notes that people can access to kind of know how to take some next steps. But as we're bringing things to a close, any last thoughts for you as we wrap the community series? - You know, it's been said that the meaning of life is relationships. And I am an introvert, not an extrovert, on personality tests, you know, that test people as task oriented or people oriented. I'm with all the way over on task. I'm introverted and I'm task oriented. And so I always part of me is like, ah, is that really what I could not believe that more. God is, and we talk about this in the practice, God is a kind of relationship that we would call Trinity. He is the relationship and the love between, and the connection between the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that's who God is. And we are the Imago Day of God. We are made in the image and likeness of God. At our core, we are not minds or bodies, we are relational souls made by relationships of love, for relationships of love, with God and with each other. And that two dimensionality of Christian spirituality, that a lot of modern kind of Protestants want to just focus on the love relationship with God, but Jesus does not give us that option. What's the greatest commandment? Love the Lord, your God. And then he wasn't asked what's the second greatest commandment, but he said, and the second is like, I love your neighbor as yourself. Community is the place where we are loved, and love and return God, and we love, and are loved by our brothers and our sisters. I just cannot say, career is important, and doing good in the world is important. Lots of things are important. Health is important. Diet and extra, all these things are important. The meaning of life is relationship. And if we are to center our relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and with his family, his sons and his daughters, David Brooks writes about the difference between resume virtues and energy virtues, and man so many of us live our lives focused on resume virtues. What we've done, what we own, what we've, but when we're 80 or 90 and we die, or much younger and we pass, what people will talk about is not our career, how much money we made, or what car we drove, or what grades we got in school, or where we went to school, nobody will care. What people will talk about is that it will be hopefully our grandkids talking about whether or not we are present to them. So man, I want to live, start with the end in mind, right? I want to live for that day. I want to live a deeply relational life as a follower of Jesus, knowing there will be lots of bumps along the way, because the meaning of life is ultimately love. Yes, so good. Wow. Well, friends, thanks so much for joining us for this last episode of the Community Series. We hope this season has helped you begin or continue in your journey of cultivating a community of love and depth around you. As we bring our time to a close, it would mean so much if you would share your favorite episode or a moment from the season with whoever you think it might encourage. And please consider subscribing to the Rule of Life podcast so that you'll be in the loop when our next season on the practice of service is out and in the world. We're excited to share that one with you. Let us leave you with this one final blessing as you go. God who sets the solitary and families make you into a family. And he bind your hearts together in his love. And he heal you, grow you, and form you into people of love.