Having a certain level of social anxiety after a year-plus of isolation is to be expected. Some of you are about to go back to campus or start working in-person for the first time in a long while. That’s a really big change!
Community and Relationships
Though I was strongly against attending my local community college, I’ve actually ended up being called to that exact campus to plant an InterVarsity chapter. (Jesus can be funny like that.) And while there are definitely challenges, the truth is I love ministering here!
I know we can’t peg Jesus’ personality type (although die-hard Enneagram or Myers-Briggs types might try!), but I do think his example offers comfort and encouragement to us introverted folks.
“Who am I to lead?” I’ve asked myself that many times. Maybe you have too, as a new Christian. As if our story is separate from the Church, and we don’t belong.
As campus was closing due to COVID, we felt an invitation to step into the unknown and experiment and learn, to be a community committed to each other even when separated.
God is our hope when we feel disoriented. He loves us and is faithful to show us his mercies each day.
God had a clear plan for making us physical beings—there’s something more to gathering together than just breathing the same oxygen.
With sheltering in place and so many world-altering events happening right now, intense, loaded conversations are becoming increasingly common. Yet doing anything else may sound better than talking about something so potentially divisive (any Enneagram 7s or 9s here?). But how will these issues ever be resolved if they aren’t first acknowledged?
I have been thinking a lot about how the pandemic and sheltering in place with families and friends—some healthy and some not so healthy—affects us. Why are some people more resilient while others are struggling so much? What factors are at play here, and how can we all move toward holistic health?
So what can our community look like in this new season? Scripture outlines key practices that communities of God can engage in, even in our new socially distanced world.