Small Group
Posted By taitlifto On September 22, 2008 @ 9:03 am In BTBF | 2 Comments
So, in an effort to find a place at BTBF where I can build relationships, I’ve done a few things - for some reason, they typically don’t work out though. I need to go back in time and jot a few of them down, but for the sake of current continuity I’ll just speak to last night’s lifegroup attempt. I had checked www.btbf.org for lifegroups in the area that included singles in their 30’s and found 2 groups - one of which met on Sunday afternoon (4pm). It was advertised as singles in their 20’s and 30’s, no kids, so I decided to check it out.
I showed up around 4:05p to my first meeting yesterday and found that I was the first to arrive. The couple leading the group were in their 20’s and one of the first things the gentleman said was that he was the oldest one in the group at 27. A little while later, another younger girl showed up, so it was just the 4 of us for over an hour. A 5th person came around 5:15p.
Things were fine - but we were going through basic Christianity things - things that I’ve known forever and even taught. Not wrestling with real life issues, but going through the basic tenets of Christianity by going through a study put together by humans. Another “program” where the answers are obvious and carefully layed out by the authors using bits and pieces of the Bible put together to make their points clearly.
Now, I know I’m looking for something that is rare to find: true authenticity and caring in a group going through life in a similar place at the same time. But, why is it so hard to find? And that’s my struggle currently with BTBF - I don’t feel that I belong to anything real. Everyone tries so hard to do “programs” but I don’t see real life. When I try to find it, I hit wall after wall after wall.
I recently went to Eric Willis, the caring pastor and laid it all out on the line about my life and where I was at. He promised to mentor me and help me in my desparate times, but then dropped out of sight. A few months later, I called him on it and he apologized and this time said he’d put me in contact with someone else to handle that. OK. Well, he put a woman in touch with me which was unsettling because that’s not what I need - I need a good male mentor. And she only works regular business hours so she tried to call me and talk to me at work - a place I cannot talk freely. Life happens outside of normal business hours, people!
I expressed as much to her and then she passed my info to some guy who contacted me about getting involved in a life group. But that wasn’t my original request. *sigh*
I know this sounds negative - I think my frustration is coming through unchecked right now - the thing is that real life is hard. Most people in church don’t deal with real life with each other from my extensive experience, but prefer to use cliches and casual Christianity as their method of interaction, going from one emotional high to another without truly getting into the trenches of ugliness. This is my call for myself - to find people that are willing to go to that level unconditionally.
And that’s where the rubber meets the road.
2 Comments To "Small Group"
#1 Comment By Sherri E. On September 22, 2008 @ September 22, 2008
Hm. That sounds really tough.
I don’t know what your experience with life groups has been, so this may be way off base, but have you considered joining a life group of people _not_ just like you? The married couple with little kids? Might have both been where you are in the not too distant past. The guy just out of college might be where you were a few years ago.
The thing– well one of the things– about living in true community and dealing with real life alongside one another is that true communities (by true I mean internally cohesive, rife with forgiveness, and, inasmuch as possible given the exigencies of place and culture, reflective of the whole universal body of Christ) are diverse in terms of life-stage and life experience. We all have something to learn from one another; we all have something to give. This is not a platitude; it is something I have come to understand at a gut level from my own experience.
It IS really hard to find a group of people (no matter what their age and life stage) truly willing to commit to getting into the “trenches of ugliness” alongside one another. My theory is that this is because being deeply committed to community means having to put others before one’s self, and human beings in general are REALLY BAD at not being selfish– reason #476,589 that we need grace so much if we’re going to have any success in relationships at all.
Just my two cents. I’m glad to see you thinking about this stuff.
PS– Your spam protection device flummoxed me, the literature person, until I realized that I was supposed to perform the mathematical operation of addition rather than just enter some text. Hah! Guess that’s why I’m a literature person. 
#2 Comment By thelonegunmaam On August 27, 2009 @ August 27, 2009
I have had similar experiences with churches also, but in the end, I think most of it has to do with logistics - the kind of people who live their lives outside of a basic Christian programs are more likely to be found outside of those church programs and in more substantial places, like the real world or in an involved ministry or changing diapers in Sunday nursery (where the rubber reallly hits the road, imo). I also think relationships forge best around a common interest or goal, so the general lifegroup is…well general, which means depth is less likely to come by. That’s why it’s so hard to find in that situation.
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