I think I've mentioned a couple (or 456) times that me and my roommate/best friend host what we call a community group on Wednesday nights. It has been going on a little over a year now. It's called a Community Group because our church is fairly large and we don't have Sunday School (thank the good Lord!!) and so it's a way to branch out and meet people and "do life together". It's a fairly new idea (or at least the idea set in motion is fairly new) having started a little over a year ago. The preacher was challenging the "congregation" (i hate that word) to start a small group where people can come over or meet at a central location and just do life together. When all this occurred, me and Jules had only lived here for about 8-9 months and we didn't have a lot of friends. Actually, we had 2 friends. TWO. So, Jules said, "why don't we do it!?" which is totally out of character for her! She's usually a little bit introverted and holds back when it comes to meeting new people. I'm usually the one who's like, "Yeah!! Let's put ourselves out there!!" But the roles were completely reversed at that moment. She said we should do it...I said Heck no!! But, in the end she talked me into it--basically by saying that if we wanted to make friends and have a life here then we needed to do SOMETHING. So, we signed up...took the "class" and started our group.
The first Wednesday we had a couple come. They were super nice. We hung out and had a little finger food tray. I think I remember thinking that they'd never come back. I figured that people have enough "crazy" in their lives without adding us to the mix. The next Wednesday night that first couple did not come. (I knew it!) but a new couple came. They were really nice and seemed pretty normal, too. I figured they wouldn't come back either, but they did. And guess what!? The first couple came back too. I think the next time we met was for a Christmas Party. There were 6 of us there. It was the first time the two couples had ever even been in the same room with one another. Me and Jules were both going out of town for the next week or so for Christmas and then there was New Year's so we didn't meet for 2 Wednesdays. I figured we would never see these people again--that they wouldn't come back after the holidays.
So, January 2008 comes along and the church hosts this thing where all the groups set up a table and a sign and you stand there and you advertise your group and people can sign up to get emails and info about your group. We had people come. About 8 signed up. Maybe not even that many. I can't remember. So I emailed the group list and the next Wednesday we packed like 10 people in our house. I remember thinking...Oh, these people will get a taste of my crazy and they'll never come back. But they did. They kept coming back. And they brought friends. (I have no idea why). At some point we were packing 25 people in our house. TWENTY-FIVE. I still couldn't figure out why 25 people wanted to hang out with us, and I kept saying, "They'll never be back.
In the beginning me and Jules sat down and really discussed in what direction we wanted the group to go. We knew that neither of us felt we wanted a very serious, straight-laced Bible Study of sorts, because neither of us are straight-laced or very serious. We knew we wanted to provide a fun atmosphere, and we knew that we wanted to create a comfortable environment where people could come and make good friends that they could count on and build relationships with. So, that became our main focus. We started out with a schedule of doing Dinner nights, Game nights, Themed-snack night, and Bible study night. That went on for months, and was pretty successful. We had a couple "members" who were coming every week, but sort of putting pressure on us to create a more strict "Bible study" program rather than a "fun" program. We weren't sure what to do, and we really didn't want cause anyone to leave, so we started trying to please everyone. There were some who wanted a little bible study but still fun, some wanted only bible study and some said they got enough bible study elsewhere (i.e. church, other groups, etc). We weren't sure how to please everyone and we started to dread having the group. We tried to assign volunteers to particular weeks to do a Bible study, but then people wouldn't show up and we'd be left scrambling. We refer to that time period as "the wonder years" because it's a WONDER anyone stuck around. It was terrible. The group felt strained because we were strained. It was a very rough patch. Finally we had to sit down with the people who were causing a rift and tell them that we had gone astray from our original focus. It was a very uncomfortable thing for us to tell someone, "hey, if this is not the group you're looking for THAT'S OKAY....but we're not changing. Let me tell you about some other groups you might enjoy." I was constantly worried that we had stepped on some toes and that those people would gossip or whatever about us. But, eventually we felt we had done the right thing. It wasn't immediate, but those people who were unhappy with our group, they left and last I heard they found a group and were very happy. And we were happy too.
So, fast forward a few months. We no longer have 25 people coming...lots of those must have figured out how crazy we really are ;-) . We do have a core group of about 12 that come almost every week. We have new people email me almost every week who want to try the group out. Sometimes they stay and sometimes they don't but either way, it doesn't matter. I really feel like we are doing exactly what we're supposed to be doing.
So, now we don't have a set schedule of what "activities" we do each week. But we are trying really hard to come up with some fun things to do. During the summer we did a great job, with things such as Kickball games and swimming nights. We had Thanksgiving dinner last week, and in December we have all kinds of things planned. Including a Christmas party--where there should be more than 6 people, and almost everyone will know one another.
In the beginning if you would have told me that we'd still be going strong after a year, and that the original 4 "members" are still there, I would have laughed in your face. I would have said that you were insane, because people have enough Crazy in their lives without adding us to the mix. I would have said that we don't have much to offer and that people won't come over just to be bored. And I would have been wrong. As it turns out, we love these people who come over on Wednesday nights. They have supported us in every way possible, showing that they really care about us too. There have been times when Jules was out of work when we weren't sure how the bills were going to get paid. Without anyone else knowing one of the "members" gave us 1,000 dollars. ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. Another person gave us 300 dollars. THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS!! People sacrificed what they had to help us out. And they haven't just supported us. They've supported each other. They've been there for one another. They've built the relationships that count and that they can count ON. They have friends they can call at 2:00 AM if something goes terribly wrong. And THAT'S what we were aiming for. We love our friends--and can pretty securely say that they love us too.
That's what CommUNITY is all about.
No comments:
Post a Comment