Belonging....

So today i started reading "The search to belong: Rethinking intimacy, community, and small groups", by Joseph Myers. It was very eye opening and truthful. I think over the last couple years i have thought about where i feel i belong. I think my experience working on the cruise ship maybe makes my understanding of belonging different than most. Since, I would have to say the group of people i felt more open about life, and felt heard was with those group of amazing people, most women, that you feel like you've known each other for ages. The last time i saw my good friend Kari, she said this is not good bye its till next time. In my life i have experienced very few people who could say that without it sound true and honest.

I find our world has created a need for belonging since modernity believed that the individual was the most important entity in life. This lie has been exposed over the last couple of years. Now we come to a point where everyone feels along and searches for this place where we can be heard and feel at home. Myers notes his life changed while hearing Brian McLaren and Len Sweet propose the idea that postmodern people wish to "belong before they believe." Now to some people that sounds heretical. How can we have them in our fellowship if they don't believe in certain doctrines. While there are doctrines that are important to the church..the simple fact is that is not how people experience God. It is by encountering God in people. Rob Bell says that to be a a kingdom of priest as is stated in Exodus 19 is to display the divine…so to show people God. So like the people are to show to God…the action of the people show people who God is like.

I guess that is a bit off topic but i think in this age words are nice, but the real work happens when we show them stuff..when people feel like we want to be here...where without coersion they come willing. Myers says "A church of small groups? Sounds like forced relational hell to me." This idea that since the people are in the church your gonna naturally have something in common with them and feel heard.

I think the last little while I've realized that I don't have a sense of belonging in my home church. A church where i have attended for over 10 years now..and am currently interning at. I have great friends there, people who i love dearly that have a great effect on my life. But, someone i don't think i feel heard. Maybe what intensifies this feeling is that there is a 'out of the box' anglican church i have been attending the last 3-4 weeks. I have no real relationship there, but i have a sense of belonging. St. Benidicts Table...speaks and embodies what is beautiful about church. Sometimes i wonder if it is worth it to get up sunday morning and go through the motions. At St. Benidicts Table..i feel inspired , challenged, and honestly at times during song, the message , or a part of liturgy i am on the verge of tears. I feel I belong I feel accepted. I think this is odd...or maybe reveals a misunderstanding within the church of what it means to belong to a community. Well this has went on longer than i thought..just some random thoughts.

Now i just want to conclude by saying that my home church is not that bad. I think I am in a place where many evangelicals who identify themselves more with the emergent movement than with their own traditions. I think that is mainly due to this modern/post-modern shift that is taking place in culture..what happens when one is stuck in a church that has fully heartedly accepted a modern understanding of life...and for some reason you have grown into a person who thinks completely post-modern. It like your in a world that doesn't understand you and thus...if north americians desire to belong that is near impossible. So my church is great lots of friends that i love and respect dearly meet God among the wall at my church..the only problem is that i don't. I guess it's like Tony Jones, National Coordinator of Emergent Village , recently shared in his an emergent village email...i have been told from many people in the last couple years that "Emergent saved my life."...not sure if i would say saved my life..but i would say the life that the modern church was attempting to suck out of me has been restored..it has given me passion and vision for life. To put it but it in basic words..I have a place to belong.