Was in Cardiff today for a Fresh Expressions vision day to chat a little about the Lab, ideas we're exploring and things we've learned from the whole process. Hi if you found the blog from the handouts I gave out – and feel free to look around and check out my thoughts. In particular, you may be interested in the Lab, Mission and Church categories of my different posts.
The day was really positive, and despite being very much an introduction to missional/emerging church thinking gave me plenty to think about and reflect on. Was especially great to meet a couple of guys I was unaware of who are doing similar things in South Wales – and to get the chance to think aloud with them.
Someone asked me a question about "belonging" which I'm not sure I did a great job of answering at the time, but wanted to expand on now in case they find their way here – or in case it helps/inspires someone else.
Joseph Myers has a great book called
The Search to Belong - which talks alot about our built in desire to belong as part of community. He talks from the context of a pastor thinking about home groups and belonging and thinks about different environments, from intimate to public, and how different people are naturally more likely to feel they belong in these different environments.
He argues that rather than to try and force belonging to happen by pushing people together, instead we need to create environments which enable belonging to happen. I think this is a really helpful way of thinking – to ask the question, how are we creating a community environment in which people can belong? This is rather than to try and force people into interacting with each other.
In terms of the Lab, I think one of the major things we've stumbled upon to produce that "belonging" environment is to eat together – which we do regularly every week. Food is a great lubricant for conversation and community. We've even found this to be so effective that we do the same with the small teenage girls group which some of the Lab members lead.
Hope that's a bit of a better exploration of the "belonging" idea.
