[sunday: conversations; bagels;abigail washburn; crisp weather & chilly feet; brainstorming; harmonica; coffee]
Missional community seems to be the word of the past few months, as I've been processing what that even means alongside my community group and home church (Jericho Road). Throughout this process, I've become easily frustrated and cynical because I feel like it's hard to live missionally as an overcommitted student--like there is no place for me in this whole pursuit.
This past summer I was beyond blessed to be a part of a missional community in Amsterdam. I worked at a Christian hostel that literally gave the poor wanderer a place to lay her/his head. There would be days where I would have tears of joy because I was so thankful for being a part of something that I only dreamt of before. There would be an almost equal number of days where I would be in tears because of the overwhelming amount of heartbreaking stories I would hear and see. But goodness, my dear friends, it was so powerful to be in a community that loved and served in bold ways--a community that did life and shared meals with people from all walks of life. No longer was the woman caught in prostitution just a statistic, or the man struggling with alcoholism just a wanderer on the street, but they were my friends and very much involved in my life.
My question, then, is how do I translate that back home? I'm a busy student. Most of my week is filled with classes and clubs. I don't have a car. I live in a small apartment with three other woman. I live in a bubble.
So, this morning I decided to stop throwing the "I'm a student so missional community is hard" pity-party, and actually started to rethink my definition of missional community. Don't get me wrong, I dream to one day live in an intentional, missional community--to have a space where I can pursue that more fully through hospitality and the like. But that's not where I'm at these days.
[and does missional community come easily for anybody? I can't think of any situation in which a missionally-minded lifestyle would come naturally. We're all working through this with different committments, resources, responsibilities. It's something we all need to work through]
I need to stop restricting my involvement by what I can't do, but rather think about what I can do. And the beautiful thing about community is that we all have different resources and gifts to bring to the table to accomplish what is impossible to do with just one.
My prayer for you and for me is this: to get creative with what we have and to actually do something with it.
[i typed the word "missional" 9 times. now 10]
