Back to Community Building

Intentional Community: As Seen through the Eyes of Three Friends

Beth: When the question of writing this article first came up, I told my husband that there was only one thing I was sure of: “If we write this article, we’ll need to do it separately. Writing with other people is way too hard and I just don’t have the time and energy.” My husband laughed. As I cocked my head, confused puppy style, he asked, “So, all you know is that if you write an article about community, you want to do it alone, without your community?” He laughed some more, and eventually I smirked myself.

Jeannie: So we’re here in community, smirking together, attempting to talk and write about community.

Beth: And yes, like community itself, this requires time and energy.

Mindi: Our hope is that we can communicate something of the gift that community is to each of us, and encourage you to prayerfully seek the community you need and to cherish the community you’ve been given.

B: Some things are worth the time and energy. What is community? Can we define it?

M: According to Webster, yes. Within the context of our lives, it’s a little trickier, so maybe not.

J: But we can talk about it.

Intentionality

B: What we’re talking about is intentional community that is somehow life-giving and transformative.

J: Community involves being in authentic and purposeful relationship with others. There’s some level of knowing and being known. There’s a sense of belonging and safety to be real and “in process.” It means bravely exposing our hearts to others who receive it with gentle acceptance and confidentiality. It’s doing life together— the good, the bad, the clean, and the messy.

M: Sometimes community is found within families; sometimes it’s found within task-driven groups. Sometimes it’s found within church staffs; sometimes it’s not. We often assume there’s community in each of these, but we can be left with empty hearts—not feeling safe, encouraged, or known.

J: Community of this kind doesn’t just happen. It requires intentionality.

M: Yes. Intentional community requires a commitment to time and a willingness to put in effort for a long time. Deep, soul-transforming community doesn’t happen overnight.

‘God’ Questions

B: It also doesn’t happen without a commitment to asking each other the hard questions about how we’re doing with God.

J: That reminds me of a poem I read— it brought to mind our intentional community. The poem is by Hafiz:
“A
Hunting party
Sometimes has a greater chance
Of flushing love and God
Out into the open
Than a warrior
All alone.”

B: I love this. Yes, we’re asking each other the God-hunting questions.

J: We ask each other the “Where is God in that?” type of questions that we spiritual directors so love to ask.

M: And that gets us to some core stuff in our souls—stuff that takes courage to push into. We’re not meant to do life alone. We’re wired to need intimacy with God and others.

Intimacy

B: Being in community helps me to get out of my narcissistic world and gives me the courage to live wide awake in the greater world I was created for. I can’t do this alone. I used to think I could. I spent a good ten years in my own spiritual it’s-just- God-and-me cocoon. I got tired of getting hurt by people, so I thought this was a good option. It seemed like I was doing pretty well, too. I didn’t have to deal with anybody, including myself, so I lived pretty peacefully. Over time, God led me out of this protective cocoon and deep into the mess and beauty of the world around and inside of me. I’m not always thankful, but I know I’m where I’m meant to be.

J: That’s true for me, too. Without community I’d probably never deal with my own stuff…or I’d wallow in my own stuff. The point is, community helps keep that balanced. My stuff is noticed, spoken, heard, and supported. I’m seen and valued, and so is everyone else in my community. I think it helps me to be both more self-aware and other-focused.

M: Being single, community is a lifeline for me. It’s the place where I can give and receive comfort, find help, share myself, love, and be loved. Community gives me encouragement, laughter, rest, and healing.

Family-Like

M: Jeannie and I are in a fairly organic community with several other people from our church. It sprang out of us being covolunteers in our middle school ministry. We get together weekly and share day-today life stuff. It’s like family. I don’t have biological family in the state, so this is my family. We’re intentional about sharing our joys and sorrows with each other.

J: There have been lots of crises, from births to deaths to fires and group evacuation. I think these have bonded us together and have created a safe family dynamic. We know that we can depend on one another to help out—babysitters, sick parents, sick kids. And we celebrate together— birthdays, baptisms, anniversaries, new jobs—all of those life moments that deserve to be marked with a party.

B: I’m thrilled to have my family in town. We get together every Saturday morning at our local coffeehouse. Every Wednesday we have a sibling gathering over dinner and West Wing! These weekly times keep me connected to people who are important to me and foundational to who I am.

Task-Driven Communities

J: Mindi and I are students in a two-year Christian Formation and Direction Ministries [CFDM] program. Beth is part of our six-member teaching team. Our task is to complete a program that encourages our spiritual formation and trains us in the study of spiritual direction. As a group we’ve intentionally been vulnerable with each other. This has helped create a deep and significant community.

M: We seem to have a like-heartedness toward God and each other, but we’re not necessarily like-minded. We all come from different socioeconomic, theological, and political persuasions. We’re intentional about accepting and even valuing the differences we find in each other.

J: Gosh, that sounds so lovely, peaceful, and harmonious. Right?

M: Was that a real question? Actually, no, not so much. Sometimes it’s really hard. And honestly, it’s messier with Beth being part of the teaching team. Sometimes there are confusing boundary issues.

J: No, not a real question. I just wanted to make sure we were telling it like it is.

B: I’m involved in two task-driven communities that we’ll call discerning communities. We come together to listen to God in, through, and in spite of each other. We attempt to act on what God inspires in our time together. The CFDM training program Mindi and Jeannie were just referring to is the result of one of these communities. In another, God is birthing new ways for Youth Specialties to help youth workers care for their own souls—at least we’re hoping this is what God is birthing…the baby hasn’t yet crowned. This way of doing community is exciting to me. It intentionally honors community first, and any idea or decision the group needs to make comes out of us being in community. It’s a different way of leading and a different way of decision-making.

J: I’d put the Youth Specialties staff in the task-driven community category too. (Jeannie’s husband, Mindi, and Beth are YS employees.)

M: Definitely. Youth Specialties has a purpose and mission, and we exist to accomplish it. That’s the task. This specific task lays part of the foundation for community to occur. How much it becomes community for its employees differs from person to person. I think it depends on interest, personal connection, buy-in to the mission, and the sense of being heard and known.

J: As an employee’s wife, I find significant community at Youth Specialties. I connect on a heart level with a lot of YS people as well as with the company’s purpose and mission. I feel like I belong there, and belonging is a big piece of community for me. It’s a lot like when my husband was a youth pastor. I wasn’t the one with the responsibility or the paycheck, but I still desired to be part of the church staff community.

M: A church staff or volunteer team can be a task-driven community.

B: I think many of us hold hopes and expectations that our church environment would provide a kind of authentic community for us. But, as a spiritual director, I work with lots of youth workers who are hurt and disillusioned because their church staff isn’t functioning as a nurturing community.

M: When I was on a church staff, I felt pressure to have it all together. I didn’t feel safe to question, doubt, or struggle with my faith. Since I sometimes do doubt and struggle, it wasn’t always an easy place for me to find community.

J: When my husband was a youth pastor, sometimes it was hard to be vulnerable with our youth staff and volunteer team. We were better at creating community for others than we were at fully participating in it ourselves.

B: This doesn’t mean that church settings are poor places to find community. It’s a natural community source for many people. When we’re in church leadership, finding authentic community is often complicated and sometimes not readily available. You may have to look for it more diligently and carefully.

M: I found this to be true. I did find community with a couple of staff members’ wives and a couple friends. With them, I could be honest about my faith and questions. It helped to look outside the immediate circle of people I worked with in the church.

Spiritual Friendships

M: The three of us form a spiritual friendship community. This is where I feel safest to be real with my internal life. I know that what I share in community won’t leave the cone of silence. They don’t even tell their husbands what we share together.

J: Um...

M: Hey!

J: I’m just kidding. The cone of silence is firmly in place, my friend.

B: We’ve never been very formal about our commitment, but we have been intentional. We shoot for meeting monthly, and we talk about the deep stuff going on for each of us.

J: It would be easy to laugh and chat and never get to the deeper stuff, if we didn’t choose to go there.

M: Especially when stuff is up between us.

J: But we do go there, and it’s reassuring to know that the two of you will ask about the deep stuff. I’ll typically answer honestly in that safe setting, but I might not bring it up if the question wasn’t asked.

M: This is more about what’s going on with our hearts than our behaviors. It’s not accountability so much as it’s helping each other notice the places in our lives where we can draw closer to God.

B: Right, but in that safe setting, I think we’re all invited to gently help each other notice things that might be blind spots.

M: Absolutely.

B: It’s not sin management. It’s about what’s underneath our sin. It’s about our hurt and stuck places. It’s about exposing the stuff that keeps us living small. We get to see if the things we say we want to be about really show up in how we live.

J: We ask each other, “How are you?”

M: And the thing is—we really want to know, so we wait until the question is really answered.

J: I think the most important and helpful part of making our time together into being something edifying versus venting is that we try to listen for what God might be up to in the midst of each other’s stories. We also help each other notice the places of growth and celebrate those.

It’s Messy

M: In genuine community, at some point it’s going to get messy. When this happens, my first impulse is to run away. There’s going to be pain in walking through the mess, and we may not end up in a better place. There’s risk, and I don’t like risk. Sometimes this is all I have strength for, but there’s no hope in running. There’s no healing or growth in running. It’s not a great option.

J: Another “not so great option” is wallowing in the mess. It makes it all about me and my wounds and my self-pity. I’m sometimes tempted to go there first—if I’m not running away with Mindi. Fortunately, I tend to get sick of myself when I focus too much on myself and just wallow in the mess. It doesn’t leave room for healing or growth either.

M: Another option is to gloss over the hard place and make it feel fixed by tidying up the situation. Glossing over means saying or doing whatever is necessary to make people feel better. It’s kind of like brushing the dirt under the rug, but eventually the dirt creates a bump under the rug so big you trip over it.

B: Or we just sit in the messiness. It’s a place of unknown and risk and discomfort. It’s vulnerable.

M: Working through the messiness means not running and not hiding. Working through hard places means being honest about the pain, but not becoming a victim of it. It’s scary and it can be really hard.

J: When things do get messy, and they will, we’re choosing to honor our community relationships by not running from the mess, wallowing in it, or glossing anything over. When we choose honesty and vulnerability and allow ourselves to risk relational pain and loss, then deeper intimacy is possible. Deeper community can develop, and hopefully we can hang onto it.

Seasons

B: I’m not sure “hanging onto it” is what it’s about. There’s often something seasonal about relationships, and I think that’s true of community as well. Some will last a lifetime, but most only last for a season. It’s hard to hold loosely to what God has given us, but it’s really important. Of course, I find myself clinging quite often, so maybe you two can remind me I said this.

M: When there’s a loss of community, it doesn’t necessarily indicate failure. It may simply be the end of that season. I used to be involved in a meaningful community in Tulsa. We didn’t end because of failure. We ended because that season had passed. Each of our lives began to move in different directions. Mine moved to San Diego.

B: I had to walk away from a community that became destructive to my spirit. It was a woman’s group at a former church. My voice wasn’t heard, and the theology wasn’t something I believed represented God well. This was really hard because I cared about the women a lot, and I needed them. But ultimately I needed to listen to God and to my own spirit.

J: But how do we know what’s happening in the midst of a messy place in community? If we’re experiencing relational loss, we’re going to be grieving. In the midst of that, how do we know the loss isn’t based on misunderstanding or lack of self-awareness or something else? How do we know if we should let go of the community or fight to keep it?

M: I think it takes a lot of discernment. You can’t make a snap judgment about what’s happening in the community. It’s something to take a little time with, to consider prayerfully, to talk through with others in the community, or to even seek wise counsel from outside the community.

B: There aren’t easy answers, and working through hard places isn’t a science. It’s not black and white. It’s messy.

Some Thoughts on How

M: So how do we pursue community? What if we long for it but don’t have it?

B: Asking God to help us notice relationships that could become authentic community for us is probably a good starting place. I might prayerfully look at the people already in my life and ask God to help me discern whether to invite some of them into intentional community with me.

M: We may be able to find deeper community with groups we’re already in: family groups, church staff or volunteer groups, youth worker networking groups, or friendship groups. There’s a reason we’re together, and that may be a foundation on which to build. We might prayerfully consider inviting one of our groups to intentionally go deeper with each other and see what develops.

J: Sometimes it’s tempting to look for people like ourselves, but homogeneous groups aren’t necessarily the most helpful in terms of transformation or listening for God’s voice. Diversity helps us grow and stretch. It creates an environment for us to become more self-aware and to expand our view of God.

B, J and M: We’d like to leave you with a parting blessing.

May God bless you with others to intentionally and authentically journey with through life.

May you find community to be a place of rest, healing, growth, and laughter.

May you have courage for the messiness that comes, and may you receive it as opportunity for deepening intimacy with each other and God.

May community allow you to see the face of God, each other, and yourself more clearly and with more grace.

Mindi Godfrey has nearly two decades of youth ministry experience, currently serving as the customer service and partnership coordinator for Youth Specialties. Beth Slevcove teaches for Christian Formation and Direction Ministries and Bethel Seminary in San Diego, where she also serves as the spiritual director for YS. Jeannie Oestreicher is a member of the YS Soul Shaper Board, a student in a spiritual direction program, and a volunteer junior high youth worker. All three seek to make community part of their daily lives (especially when they can share sushi together).