Uncomfortable communities....

A few years back I had done a study on Community which continues to challenge me as I look around and observe the various communities I have been in touch with. But the more I see, the more I see comfortable communities! Not any more the boiling pots of simmering fires. May be we have grown, or is it really growth?

One end of the spectrum is what i call the "Boiling Pot community." This is where there is outright conflict, each person lives for his own plans and desires. The end point is me, mine and no more.

From this stage, because of various issues, the community might move to seeming peace. This is the "Simmering Fire community". Due to contextual pressures, there is a cohabitation, but an inner cold war. There is a hai, bye relationships but still the end point continues to be me.

Somewhere down the line, due to a common agenda which needs to be fulfilled, people move into a "Lukewarm community" where there is peaceful coexistence for a common agenda. The end point of coming together is the common agenda, usually work, ministry or institution.

From there, if guided well, one moves into a "Warming community". This stage is where members are protective of community, because the identity comes from being part of the community. To some extend each other functions as "brothers keepers" because in protecting each other you keep the community together, which itself is the end point.

As one continues in the journey of living in community, a realization of the need of caring for each other could emerge. This stage of "Footwashers community", is where there is growth in understanding of the need to care for each other, growing in openness to each other. Many a times even at this stage, community remains the end point.

The ultimate expression is the " Community of the Cross" a group of people who are broken, bound by the uniting factor of being broken but healed at the foot of the cross. Here people are dependent on God and interdependent on each other. The end point is Christ, His Cross and His Glory......

There are three kinds of comfortable communities.

The most common one sees around is “Comfortably comfortable communities”. The comfortably comfortable communities, the members live and engage with each other without much difficulty. There is reasonably good relationship, hierarchies are well laid out, status and positional equations in relationships are well understood. One need each other to sustain their positions and roles in their life together as community. But the danger of such comfortable communities are they, they tend to be “complacent” and tries to maintain status quo. One tends to lose the greater purpose. The purpose moves from the meta narrative to communities own narratives. Narratives by which community itself is the end point.

The second community is one which is “uncomfortably comfortable” communities. There are members in the community who are not comfortable with too much of comfort. They think it is too comforting for them. They challenge the status quo, ask questions challenging paradigms, perceptions and start asking questions beyond the visible and tangible. Issues regarding purposes beyond self and community are off and on talked about, to one extend. But when it becomes too discomforting, issues are left aside, and members retreat into their own roles and responsibilities or positions within the community. The end point is personal growth through being uncomfortable but without being too uncomfortable since self-identity is linked to community one is part of. Here self becomes the end point.

The third is what we one could call as uncomfortably uncomfortable communities. Where there is comfort in being constantly uncomfortable. Constantly challenging perspectives, of the purposes of self and community. The purposes of being a community, the growth in the external engagement of the community, the growth of the individual are constantly questioned and uncomfortable questions are often brought up. The health of the community is in being uncomfortable. Because out of this comes both personal growth and growth of the community. And out of this growth, the greater purposes or meta narrative for which each one and the community is called for, are contributed towards. The end point becomes others and not the community or self…

What is the end point of my life and the community I am part of – myself, my community or others…