I flipped on talk radio in my van recently and caught the last part of a conversation a guy was having about his church’s upcoming fall festival. He said that churches often try to manufacture community by hosting those types of events. Large group activities such as a fall festival or summer bbq attempt to bring people together–people who only see each other, at most, once a week (on Sunday). Even then, those people are likely just passing by in the sanctuary or chatting briefly in the foyer. Gathering those same people for a fun activity and expecting them to feel connected seems illogical. I’m not saying churches shouldn’t have those kinds of events. They can be great fun! But the conversation took my mind back to my previous post about the repercussions of the shift to a fragmented, outsourced family life. In addition to making our lives busier and scattered, it has left us starving for community.
We all know the basic definition of community–a group of people living in the same place and/or having a shared interest or characteristic. But living in the same place no longer brings with it an instant community. In the past, folks who lived in rural areas knew their neighbors out of necessity. Your neighbor helped mend the fence because his cows could get out too. You borrowed a cup of sugar, watched each other’s kids, or worked together to split wood or build a barn. If you lived in the city, community existed because of space. Tenement housing meant that whole families lived in a small space and the walls were paper thin. There was little privacy. The block you lived on turned into a mini-village where the kids played stickball in the street and everyone knew whose mother yelled the loudest. Whether you lived in the city or the country, you didn’t have 15 grocery stores to choose from. There was one store or market where everyone shopped. Everyone went to the same bank, the same barber, the same post office–and you walked to those places!
Your place was your people, and your people were your place. Like the pies the neighbor ladies brought to a potluck, your community was baked into your geography.
Now we have a sort of “patchwork” community stitched together from our places of employment, school, church, sports activities and even online friends. Our lives are built around our network and not our location. Community is based on shared interests and shared schedules. Unfortunately, what this often means is that community is wide but not deep. What happens when soccer season is over, or when your child quits playing soccer altogether? My daughter danced with the same group of girls at the same dance studio for 14 years. As the volunteer coordinator, I knew many of the dance parents. When my daughter graduated, that community vanished. I spent years of shared dance experiences with those moms, and now I rarely see them or talk to them. Hanging out with other parents at a soccer game or sitting in the pews together once a week is not the same as shouldering the weights of life together, sharing in both the suffering and the success.
And so we try to create community for ourselves, because the times may have changed but humans have not. Why does every Hallmark movie feature the city girl (or guy) who ends up ditching the urban life for her small home town and close-knit community? Why are there social trends like farmhouse decor, cottagecore, and homesteading? Whether we recognize it or not, I think those are innate desires to find what we’ve lost–connection, togetherness, and belonging.
It’s why so many churches encourage “small groups” and even call them “community groups.” They know that real community happens when we share more life experiences together and when we serve together. We must be purposeful in forming community today because it will not happen organically based on our geography like in decades past. We have to be willing to be more hospitable, more transparent, more vulnerable in order to create meaningful connections. So yes, we often must attempt to cultivate community. And that’s okay. It’s actually very smart. Maybe a fall festival really is a good place to start. Not because hayrides and apple cider slushies create community on their own, but because they give us the chance to do the harder work—showing up, sharing life, and turning strangers into family.
