Community vs. Accountability... or something like that.

I've been thinking a lot about community again lately. That is my passion really, a passion that often eludes me, yet is still my passion.

I just finished a week at YLI discussing community with a bunch of high school teen leaders in a break out session. We talked about authentic community, our relationship with God and how that affects our relationship with others. We talked about not wanting to check off more boxes in our relating with each other but how to really find community amisdts our culture that so often tells us to be an individual. Just think about it. "Your way right away", or a custom coffee drink tailored to your specific likes, or all of us with our individual music on our iPod... We are trying to get everything that we want when we want it, maybe we should just call it our "iLife".

So, like I said a lot of things have been on my brain lately about community and how Christians do community. The word that came to my mind and a lot of the kids in my class minds was "fake". Yup you heard me right, fake. I haven't figured out if that is the best word but it partially fits.

I'm in this accountability group right now and we are talking about what this group is all about. We do it via email and often times it doesn't carry much weight to my life. Actually all of the time, if I'm brutally honest with myself. Why doesn't it carry the weight? I say because it is over email. Email... what a great medium for community building. Right there next to my billions of tasks to do and the other 1300 unread emails. Or as my friend put it, "right next to my millionth Viagra email." Wow, great place to build community huh?.. Sorry I'll hold my sarcastic thoughts for a moment. Basically it is hard to drop to a deep level while I'm trying to teach or finish my tasks for the day, especially when it's just an email... no real person you know? I could just delete it with 1 click of the mouse. Not in the mood for community... click. Too many things to do... click. Don't feel like being challenged... click. It's hard to have community for me on my spotty WiFi connection. Definitely a bit removed from the real nitty gritty of our lives.

So how do we fix it? Well I'm glad you asked because I think I have some good ideas.

How about we start to live as a community again? I mean how can we have accountability with people that we first don't have community with? When I "do life" with people in an authentic way, I have the foundation for...(do I have to call it accountability?) for... spiritual depth with the people in my community. That's what I desire. But still how do we get it? Add another meeting to our schedule? Personally I don't know if early morning coffee shop times really do it for me. Don't get me wrong, it can be really nice to talk about what is going on in you life and have someone listen to you for an hour... but I just don't know if it really makes authentic community... seems more like a counseling session sometimes than a real friendship. I'm just tired of manipulated relational meetings. Not because I don't like meeting for coffee and talking, but because I want more. I want to share life with people instead.

So here is what I suggest. Why don't we start to share with people, with our community. I have lots of ideas on how to do this with out another meeting time... But that will have to be left for my next post. This one is too long already.