Discovering new things about fellowship

Once a week or so I do a devotion at the Poatina morning tea.. this was this weeks one…

It has been a good journey supporting the case work team in the village… getting on the white board how it looks when Poatina’s going well.  And we calculated that if the village is working well every young person has at least 7 sets of eyes on them, caring them for them each week.

Thinking about the challenges of community,  I pulled out old notes from Group Life Laboratory. It is a critical part of Cert IV and one of the more intense experiences where you learn about group processes.

I read the notes recently and for first time I “got” something.

All groups go through same 6 steps and the desired outcome of the process is to get to ‘valid communication’.  Valid communication is where I can actually hear what you’re meaning in what you are saying; you can actually hear what I’m meaning in what I am saying!

It sounds simple but it’s not. WE hear each other thru all kinds of lenses. The first 3 phases of group life are about : “Will I belong to this group or not?  Will I actually be part of this or not?   And if it’s coming into Poatina, or Uluru Pilgrimage or Foundations, it’s the same journey.

If you are hanging around our training you’ll hear about Inter-member identification… but I had forgotten that is not the end of the journey!   It is start of phase 4. It is the start of another journey, the journey to be part of the group but still be an individual.  The final three phases that start with intermember identification are about individuality “Can I be myself in the group?  And how do I be me?”

In some ways  wonder if as a movement, and in Poatina this may be where we’re at…asking how can I be part of all of this and still be myself.

We can begin to think, “Well nobody’s seeing me.  I need to start fighting for me.”  And then end up back at square one.

Early church fathers had a word for Trinity relationship, “perichoresis”, where you are actually wholly in my heart and I am fully in your heart – but I don’t lose who I am – my identity.

One of the short cuts to community is where we can be so busy trying to hold it together that we’re not so keen on letting people be different.

On the other hand, can be so busy fighting to be different that you can’t achieve community.

There are skills required and there is an inbuilt tension.  A cult is a place where you can’t think and act for yourself. That’s not part of the Kingdom.  But in my family, and in leadership,  it’s tempting to want people to look like me. But Jesus came to set people free not to look religious.

How can we be a place where young people can come and be themselves?  C. S Lewis said, “The more I let Jesus take me over, the more truly myself I become” . But it isn’t easy is it? This is the tension and stress of living in Poatina. Our job to be a community, but the job is for you to be you, in that.

Many of my conversations and frustrations are around those 2 issues.

Today I begin 4 periods with Cert IV looking at Wesley.  He set up all kinds of structures to build community, but kept calling people back to the fundamental relationship with Jesus. I don’t know if it’s possible to get to valid communication unless you believe there is a God who will be looking out for you.

Valid communication is gutsy:  I understand what’s in your head when you act the way you do; the same words mean different things, said by different people.  No wonder community is complex.  In this village we each have 150 relationships…so it’s 150 to power of 150 to manage. No wonder it’s complicated.

So how do you do it?  I notice when Jesus was about to leave he spent a lot of time talking to people about loving each other.  And it’s amazing how much of the epistles are about getting on with one another. Wesley said, the fundamental  motivation has to be about love.

This is 1 John 3: 16  “This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us and we too ought to give our lives for our brothers!“  Doing what they want isn’t laying down my life for them.   I think I need that kind of fellowship; I think we all need it.

“Reaching Out”  we read in Cert IV and it transformed my life when I read it.  It spends a whole lot of time talking about hospitality and about creating space for one another.  To be an unambiguous presence against which people have to work out their values and not just an empty space. The job is to be ourselves and be prepared to love each other by being ourselves and not just adapting and taking an easy route.

John goes on – “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart to his brother, how can he claim that he loves God?  My children, our love should not just be words and talk, it must be  love, which shows itself in actions and truth.”

One of the dangers for us, we have fantastic training and we can learn how to put labels on all kinds of things – I remember when we studied TA and we were labelling one another…”that was a Parent transaction” and so on!

People are complicated and it’s easy to love in words. It’s not so simple to love in actions and truth.

V19: this then is how we know we belong to the truth and how we set  our hearts at rest in his presence.

There is something about having courage to know that Jesus loves me and helps me love other people that puts my heart at rest.  When I don’t trust, it’s complicated, and messy and my heart is not at rest.

I don’t know there is any other way to get to valid communication than to put up with the discomfort of being ourselves and trusting Jesus.