My friend Jay, one of our musicians at Convergence, has great insights into the good and not so good in churches. Here are some thoughts he recently shared in an email conversation about building community:
"I have kind of been learning lately that people typically build friendships around commonalities. They know people that have kids, they work in the same place, they have the same hobbies, etc. These kind of relationships are focused on the subject rather than the person. These kinds of relationships typically end when the subject is no longer shared.
I think it would be very easy for our relationships to be built around Convergence or even Christianity rather than the person.
This sort of exposes one of my biggest issues when typically dealing with Christians. You are pressured to build the relationship 'on Christ,' but this can be deceiving because we can end up building on the subject of Christ, which is essentially lifeless. What I really think the bible wants from us are true relationships that are built on the principles of Christ which direct us to have deep and real relationships. This is the actual act of building a relationship 'on Christ.' I think if we don't do this than we my not be building the true body of Christ that the bible talks about."
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Just wanted to give the shout out to my man Jay... I was copied on that email and I thought he'd hit upon something really important.
My unhappiness in DC for a long time was largely due to lack of "true" friendships... i.e. friendships that are based on WHO people are rather than WHAT they are... on their label, so to speak. It's a joy to me to see that other people are skeptical of this tendency... especially people I already like. :^)
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