Catalyst for Community

She seemed distant from the very start of their small staff community group. Even her leader tried to draw her out and make connection, inviting her to meet for coffee or lunch or shopping? She was the one who acted disinterested when the group wanted to set a date for a dinner together. Her ministry job required a lot of time. At one point she even said she really didn’t need the group. She had her own friends.

Evaluating her body language during the group meetings, and her seeming disinterest in engaging in any way other than being present in body, made it difficult for her leader and gradually some of the other members not to make certain evaluations of her. Then, one morning, deep into the latter half of the first year of the group, as she shared her life story, an amazing thing happened.

Slowly as she laid out the pieces of her life, her vulnerability and self-disclosure became a magnet that drew the group members closer in to her and to each other. Understanding the difficult circumstances that she had come through opened the group’s eyes as to how to love her more effectively, motivating them to continue their persistence to draw her into the relationship of the group.

From “sitting on the sidelines” to taking the risk to offer her story, her action became a catalyst for a deeper level of intimacy within the group. She risked telling, and they embraced. The beginning of community happened.

It is risky business to uncover and divulge one’s life story, especially when you are one of THE ministry leaders. A nagging thought hovers – “if they really knew me, they would….” We wonder about the “fall out” of vulnerability. Is it worth the risk? Is the longing within me to be known valid?

During these weeks, the place of “story” in our spiritual formation will be explored. Does writing and telling your story contribute to your formation? Does understanding our individual story in light of the larger story, the “metanarrative,” encourage and give relevance to corporate spiritual formation?

Frederick Buechner states in his book, The Sacred Journey, “My assumption is that the story of any one of us is, in some measure, the story of us all.”

We are on a sacred journey together – my story intersecting your story for His Story.