The last of the summer camps is behind us. I am always amused as each event ends there is a rash of new facebook friends. "Kris is friends with Joni and Albert and Wally and Denise and Sandra" proclaims my news feed. And this is good. I very much favour connecting this way.
It's wonderful to be able to chat with my CPI colleagues, to receive email updates on the comings and goings of work friends, even aquaintances I see only at World Conference, to get the latest update on the social activism in my Peace & Justice monthly newsletter. Connections are great and truly do build relationships deeper and wider.
But there's really nothing exaclty like being together, is there? Our Fired Up! leadership team met last evening at a local coffee shop for a couple of great hours of checking in, making plans, visiting about summer happenings, new relationships, new houses, new babies. Some of the facts we already knew. There's just something better about seeing each other, sharing hugs, spilling coffee on each other, propping up a wobbly table, that make it all so much richer.
Members of congregations are experiencing the same thing. As fall approaches (sorry about that) summer trips are over, camping done, school is looming, we're getting back together once more. Many plans are forming and many of those plans focus on ways to get together with new and old friends. Some of these plans are formal. Family and Friends of Erie Beach will be spending one more weekend together September 10-12. Fired Up! will be calling folks together, old friends and new, for some upcoming ministries of service. (You'll be hearing from them soon.)
We've been blogging recently about reasons to come to church, or not. That's a very complex issue, with many perspectives. But surely one of the reasons is that human beings need to be together to keep those relationships strong. Families need to make those long drives, or troublesome flights or whatever, because sometimes you just need to get together!
Connections are essential. I love my facebook friends, Google groups, email lists and I hope you take every advantage they offer. But after last night, drinking coffee with my friends, I remembered that it's very, very important to be together in the same physical space.
Posted by Marion
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
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Thanks Marion. I've come to love facebook and the friends I have from all over the world. And email is wonderful for a person like me who likes to talk in person but really doesn't like talking on the phone ( I think I inherited a phone anxiety from my parents:). And while there's a great sense of connection developed on line or at gatherings that happen once a year, like camps, there's nothing like the community that can be developed when we actually live with one another as in families, neighborhoods and congregations. We get to see the good and the bad, the rewarding and the challenging, the joy and the tears, and in that experience I believe we learn to really love one another. All of it is good, but I believe the type of community we're called to live out as disciples of Jesus comes from the regular community we form when we work, worship, eat, struggle and share together. Thanks for the good word!
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