While I grew up in a beautiful town, most people looked just like me.  There was little chance to experience people of different ethnic backgrounds, cultures or world views.  And, while I had the privilege of growing up in a family that took in foster babies with different skin colors and with a mixed extended family including 5 mixed cousins of  different ethnic backgrounds, I still lived a fairly sheltered life. 

Going to college certainly opened my eyes.  One of my best friends to this day, who I met the first week of school, became my first friend with an Irish catholic dad, a mom from Ghana, and liberal political, faith and world views.  We have some of the best healthy debates on a regular basis over all that we agree and disagree on.  I have learned so much from her.  She now lives in Toronto, Canada, a city known for having one of the world’s most diverse and multicultural populations. Listening to her stories of life in Canada with her new friends from countries all over the world is so interesting!  I love hearing about how other countries handle maternity leave and how they do schooling and how much they pay for bread and milk and healthcare and in taxes.  The bottom line though, when it comes right down to the basics, is that we have so much in common with each other.  We all love our children and our families and want the best for those we care about.   But we live out those similarities and go about life in such different ways.  

Ironically, after discussing many of these similarities and differences today, I opened my MOPS MomSense magazine tonight to find an article titled “Mommies around the World.”  The article features moms from Brazil, Netherlands, Jordan, South Africa, and Singapore.  Five continents, five mommies.  One thing stood out among all the amazing differences… the inexplicable love and bond we all have with our children regardless of color, country, language, food choice, or travel method.  I was however once again mesmerized by the differences and couldn’t help but place myself in some of their shoes, thinking about how my life would be different if I lived where they do.  Some of those differences include lunch as the main meal, men not helping in the home, walking or public transportation as the main method even for grocery shopping with children in tow, no safe or clean parks to play at, small apartment living being the norm, no option for part-time or at home work for women, needing to live within guarded, gated complexes because of security reasons, and very small refrigerators requiring multiple trips to the market each week. Some of the differences are fairly small, but others are life changing.

I’m blessed with amazing family and friends.  It is easy though, to look around me and think I’m looking in the mirror.  That’s when I’m entirely thankful that I do have people in my life to remind me that the world is full of moms and dads and aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins and friends who all share the commonality of the love of their family and the drive for a better world, and yet, who believe vastly different things, vote for different political candidates, work toward different goals, and who’s everyday lives look extremely different than mine. We all could learn a lot from each other.  We’d all be better off with more diversity in our lives to teach us and to give us opportunities to influence. What do you see when you look around you?

I’ve been working recently with one of our graphic designers (also my co-coordinator at MOPS and friend) to put together the logo for Group Life at CCV.  She’s done a great job of capturing exactly what I tried to explain.  I told her I love the idea of water, that it symbolizes life, baptism and the idea of taking the risk and diving into unknown territories.  She came up with something great.  The tag line we decided on is “take the plunge.” That’s why I became even more interested in reading the “Diving Deeper” article.  The description of the article read, “Take the plunge with a friend and build a closer tie.”  I couldn’t wait to read it.  I didn’t.  I immediately sat down and opened up the magazine.

The article relates scuba diving to friendship.  Here’s an excerpt:

“Sometimes we get caught in the shallows, and the surge of the surface waves brush us to and fro, separating us from our dive partners.  Or we risk going a little deeper, but the tangles of a seaweed forest or even a shark distract us, and our partner disappears.  A little farther down and a strong tidal current might threaten to pull us apart.  Yet it’s only down deep, side-by-side, that thing are a little less trouble-some.  There the waves feel like a gentle push and pull.  And you can see the sharks and seaweed, but they’re distant and not so alarming.  Precious few of our friends manage to dive deeper with us – to explore our world side-by-side.  Although women are relational beings, we often let our principal relationships slide when we have kids.  Or, in the process of building our families, we end up moving to a new home, neighborhood or city and find we have to start all over again – and we haven’t moved deeper on the rope.  While we can rely on our husbands, family and God to help fill the gap, special friendships – what I call ‘heart friends’ – are vital to us too.   After I spoke about friendship recently, a young woman told me, ‘I don’t think I can make good friends.  No one ‘fits’ with me. ’ I understood her dilemma.  Those heart friendships take a long time to build; they’re serious investments of time, emotion, trust and experience.  But if we’re having trouble making and keeping friends, it might be time to take an honest look at ourselves.  Is there some issue that needs to be resolved that’s interfering?  Dare to ask yourself, What’s holding me back?  Am I someone I’d want to befriend? Am I too snide?  Irritable? Angry? Pessimistic? Am I honestly open to a deeper friendship? Maybe you are open and in a good place to form a friendship – but you can’t seem to find anyone who might eventually hit that ‘heart friend’ status.  Here are seven notches to the Divin Deeper rope:

Risk Stepping out.  So many women are afraid to even try reaching out to others.

Invest the time. If you want to get closer to someone, you have to make the time.

Wrestle over big ideas.  Talk over stuff that forces you deeper.

Share experiences. Attend retreats, family/neighborhood gatherings, city parades, whatever!

Seek wisdom and advice. Find out what your friend would do in your situation.

Laugh…and cry.  Dare to share things that move your heart in good and hard ways.

Study the Bible. Nothing binds women closer than diving into God’s Word together. 

Diving deeper is worth all of the effort – the sticky wet suit that’s far from flattering, the heavy tanks of air, the risk of seaweed and surge and sharks.  And the deeper you dare to go, the more you’ll experience the pleasures of God’s world, alongside a true friend.”

I have to agree with the author.  I’ve had many run-ins with ’seaweed’ and ’surge’ and ’sharks,’ but the friendship of a ‘heart friend’ is more than worth it.

THEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR GROUP LIFE:

God Exists in Community:

•   The Trinity

“God has forever existed as and will into eternity remain three persons in One.”

“The entire  Bible proclaims that God (expressed singularly) exists from all time and for all time in community as the Trinity (plurality).”

“God is, in every sense of the word, a group.”

•  We are Created in God’s Community-Bearing Image

“God created us all with a ‘community gene,’ an inborn, intentional, inescapable part of what it means to be human.”

“We are created in God’s image; therefore, we are created for community.  It’s part of being an image bearer of God himself.”

All of us, Christian and non-christian, regardless of age, gender, race, temperament, or past history, realize that part of being human means having an insatiable hunger for community.

 God was incarnate Christ Jesus, who had transformational relationships

•   God became flesh to “be with us.”
• “Jesus’ entire public ministry models what it mean to live in community.  His pattern shows us why community experienced through small group relationships is a necessity, not an option.”
• In Mark, we see Jesus drawing crowds.  But, “Jesus did not equate plenty of people with true community.” Instead of leveraging or working the crowd, Jesus invited 12 men to join him in a 3 year, life-transforming, ministry-embedding journey. 
• While Jesus knew the masses had deep needs, he spent most of his public ministry doing life with his little community.  Why?  “Jesus followed the divine pattern of  gathering a few so that he would transform many lives.”

 Jesus dreams for Oneness for all Christians

• In Jesus’ final hours, his deepest wishes while with his closest friends are revealed. Jesus prays in John 17:11, “I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you.  Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name – the name you gave me – so that they may be one as we are on.”
• Jesus is basically saying, “I want human beings to find the kind of oneness we experience in the Trinity.”
• “Jesus actually prayed that real people – this little band of real, live flawed followers – would find an amazing kind of oneness.”
• Jesus not only prays for this kind of oneness for his disciples, but John 17:20 – 21 shows us Jesus praying, “My prayer is not for them alone.  I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”

 The question is what we’ll do with this theological evidence?   Sociological Evidence to come in the next blog.