I'm reading a book by Brad House right now titled 'Community'. You should check it out. It has a lot of great insights about how to foster true community. Humour me while I provide you with a rather lengthy quote from his book.
"Since community is a blessing of God, a community group should be life giving to its members. Unfortunately, many of our experiences have been different. Community groups are often seen as obligatory and life taking. We secretly hope the kids will be sick so we can stay home. We know if we go, then Sally is going to dominate the conversation with the same issues that we've heard for the last three weeks, and insensitive Rob is going to miss the point and start lobbing verses at her. As this drags on, Jim is going to try to prove he is the smartest guy in the room by parsing a Greek verb and quoting dead Puritans. Then, just in time is running out, we will go through prayer requests for each other's aunts' cats that are suffering from angina. My only prayer will be that it ends soon so I can go get one marquises of banana bread and get home to my TV. This is not a picture of community. Yet many of us have settled for this experience because we don't know better or because we consider it a modern form of self-mortification." (p 98)
I'm not saying that that is particularly my experience, or yours, but it did resonate with me. In past times, I have felt that the interactions of a community group have felt forced and did not seem genuine. Brad has given me some great ideas for how to change that kind of situation.
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