Thickening Communities III
If friendship and eating together are the keys to thickening our communities, then there’s a third question which I think we should seriously ask ourselves:
Who has your door key?
If ‘the gospel comes with a house key,’ as Rosaria Butterfield’s provocative book is titled, then who has yours? This is particularly a question that pastors and their families and others in various forms of church leadership should ask themselves, as typically a church will only act in proportion to how they see (and hear) those who give them direction acting.
In Sam Allberry’s book on singleness, I learned some things about singleness, many things about the goodness of God, but mostly I picked up that if you want to welcome single people in the church, they will need households to join.
So, the challenge of the question should be particularly felt by married couples; and because the childless often want similar things and are navigating a particularly difficult set of tragedies, it should be felt most acutely by families. Who has your door key? What single person is in your life and known well by your children? Which childless couple comes round to join in with bath time?
It’s good to be hospitable widely, it’s good to have lots of people into your home. However, we do need to grapple with the reality that you could sustain a handful of people with ‘door key access’ at most. You aren’t looking to do that with everyone but with one or two people. If everyone in your church did the same, you’d probably find that every single person had a household they don’t live in but nevertheless feel a significant part of. That’s a big goal; you can only start with your own home.
I’m not speaking from deep knowledge here. We’ve had lodgers, who obviously had a key, including a married couple at one point, but that’s not the same thing. We haven’t done what I’m describing. We do have our best friends’ key.
We need to be realistic: this is a big ask for a lot of people. We need to be honest: one or two people are going to get this from any family at most. We need to be wise: I’ve seen certain churches where the leaders all cultivate these relationships with the same couple of people. Great for them, not great for the church. They each, instead, should cultivate them with a couple of different people. This might require talking about it together.
Why is this integral for community?
Firstly, I’m assuming that a community is made up of households; they are the fundamental building blocks of societies, not individuals. Households are a more expansive, and grounded, concept that ‘families,’ and a renewal of Christian community will be founded on a renewal of Christian households.
Secondly, I’m assuming that those in most need of deep embedded community are those who are single. Though, it may also be true that they are the most likely to have found it on their own. I imagine middle-aged men are the least likely to naturally seek it. Nevertheless, the single folk in your church needs to be around married couples and kids. You’ll find that those who give will also receive.
Thirdly, I’m assuming that as building community is a multi-generational project, it’s important to teach your children what community looks like, which you’ll be doing because friends of yours are frequently in their lives too: at mealtimes and bedtime and snack-time and it was raining so I came here rather than walk home-time and I just popped round because-time.
Fourthly, because it breaks down our latent individualism in helpful ways. It’s easy to talk big about community but it’s entirely conceptual. What’s difficult is welcoming this specific person into your life. They become part of the household in some fashion. The integrity of your marriage, your family, your individual self, and your individual responsibilities remains the same, but your vision for your household widens.
How do we get there?
This is a goal rather than a thing you just do. If you read this and just give someone you barely know your key tomorrow, that will inevitably go wrong. You have to build trust, and trust is always built slowly. You have to actually like each other and get on. You have to spend time enjoying each other’s company. You have to eat a lot of food (that’s the fun bit).
Sometimes, but not always, there also needs to be a need: initially you welcome the person because they’re struggling and your prescription is ‘be around us more.’ That’s a great pastoral tool for the toolbox. I’ve seen it be effective in lots of different kinds of situations. It starts that way but as their challenge, whatever it may be, is stabilised it grows into friendship.
What’s important here is vision. You see this as a goal. Perhaps some households never meet it, but they’re hospitable and welcoming. Perhaps some do and its good for everyone. To get anywhere we have to see a good goal, see how we aren’t there and what it’ll be like if we don’t achieve it, and then give of ourselves to make a lofty end happen. That’s what people sometimes call ‘vision casting,’ but it’s just how you motivate people to do anything.
As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry famously said:
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
If we want community, it will cost us. We’ll have some funny stories along the road. We’ll make friends, perhaps for life, perhaps for just now. We’ll get to know Jesus amongst the elbows at the table. We’ll learn ourselves and be formed towards Christ. We’ll be disciples.
Photo by Silas Köhler on Unsplash
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