Community | Romans 12:10-18

Faithful God, your heart has always been that all nations and tribes would come to know you through the witness of your people in their place.

To the exiles in Babylon, you commanded, seek the welfare of the city and plant gardens, for when it prospers, you prosper.

And here we are as your people today in the city of Eugene.

Guide us in our next years to faithfully keep our eyes and hearts and hands facing outward into our neighborhoods.

Draw each of us into a lifestyle without blinders, to, like Jesus, see those around us, be moved with compassion, and act on behalf of the poor, the orphan, the widow, the foreigner, and the broken.

May we love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

May we love our neighbors' kids as we love our own kids.

May we love our neighbors' pantry as we love our own pantries.

May we love our neighbors' sense of security as we love our own.

And may we continually become people who practice sacrificial justice, intentional hospitality, and joyful generosity toward the people, businesses, schools, neighbors, and strangers of our city.

Jesus, our shepherd, you care for your flock, offering protection and guidance and sustenance, and seeking after us when we're lost.

You've given us a yoke and burden that is light.

May we experience that as good news.

Thank you for providing Janae with a job at Bethesda Lutheran Preschool.

May this next season of work there be marked by peace and joy and provision.

Protect the next wave of UO, Bushnell, and LCC college students as they start classes and forge new friendships in their life.

As Claudia Luo and Bryce Dunn work with InnerVarsity on campus, draw students to their ministries and to the good news of King Jesus.

Be with Ben, Abigail, Emily, and Alexa as they pursue undergrad and grad school degrees on our campuses.

We ask for your supernatural healing of Charlotte's eyes.

Walk beside her when she walks.

Guide and provide for Zach and Hannah as they pursue resource parenting and do their part to care for the 650 kids in foster care within Lane County.

Support Justin and Becca as they work at Head Start and love and care for hundreds of low-income preschoolers who need a safe place and another can of spaghettios in their pantry.

Holy Spirit who dwells within us, empower us to live as your presence on earth.

May we sense your prompting and see where you are moving.

Thank you for drawing our attention to the Glenwood neighborhood and its Camus Elementary kids who live within rough housing and unsafe family conditions.

Show us what it looks like to help without hurting, as we pay attention to how you're already at work within that community.

Please resource every child as they launch a new dynamic way to meet the needs of our community called Care Portal and provide funds for Hosea youth services as they build Hosea cottages.

Strengthen us in our marriages and in our singleness, knowing that no one person can offer the peace and rest that you provide.

And thank you.

Thank you for forming this community called citizens.

You have provided so much for us so far.

People, spaces to meet, friends, leaders, and connections in our city.

May we always stay humble.

May we always have the courage to go where you lead.

And that we continue to become the community that you want us to be in this place and this time.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

And I am reading from the NLT.

Yes, the NLT version.

Romans 12, 10 through 18.

18, not eight, excuse me.

Love each other with genuine affection and take delight in honoring each other.

Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically.

Rejoice in our confident hope.

Be patient in trouble and keep on praying.

When God's people are in need, be ready to help them.

Always be eager to practice hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you.

Don't curse them.

Pray that God will bless them.

Be happy with those who are happy and weep with those who weep.

Live in harmony with each other.

Don't be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people and don't think you know it all.

Never pay back evil with more evil.

Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable.

Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.

And today we're gonna get to hear from Chris.

Welcome.

Sorry, I'm out of the range of normal height, so you gotta make things a little bit more deep.

Good morning.

It's all you beautiful people with your perfectly symmetrical faces.

Glad to have you here.

Um let's go first.

Yes.

I knew I had to get you on my side early.

So 21 and change years ago, Susie and I celebrated our first anniversary.

Uh that's us 22 and change years ago.

No, I mean, for the people listening at home, there's absolutely no difference between then and now.

We have aged gracefully.

We lived in Baltimore uh at the time.

She had recently graduated from dental school.

I was working as a construction manager with Habitat for Humanity.

We didn't have a whole lot of money, but we did have a Volkswagen golf, and we had a borrowed canoe that we strapped to the top, and we drove a couple hours north to a state park for a weekend away.

We camped.

We cooked steaks over a campfire, which is not a great way to cook steaks, but we did it.

Uh and we paired that with ears of corn that we stole from a field down the road and a nice bottle of wine, and we fished.

Uh, kind of.

We kind of fished.

There are not very many things that make Susie squirm, but we found one of them that day when she caught her first fish ever, brought it into the boat, and then saw it flopping around in the bottom and just kind of freaked out and wouldn't pick it up.

So I had to, you know, pick it up, take the hook out of its mouth, throw it back in.

We just decided to go canoeing the rest of the afternoon.

Um this was a great weekend, uh, but we also had some work to do that weekend.

Um, and for that, Susie was much more prepared.

One thing we had realized over the course of our first year of marriage was that I could not answer a deep question at the drop of a hat in the way that she could with her girlfriends.

And I would kind of get resentful of being put on the spot and feel like I need to process and have time to come up with a good answer.

So about a week prior to our trip, I asked Susie uh if she would give me some homework.

If you wanted to talk about something, give me some questions ahead of time.

So she printed up some questions and we were able to work through, talk through some different things uh during that weekend.

Um, and there were a lot of issues that we had to work through in our first year of marriage.

We had each come into the union with our own expectations, whether we knew them or not, you know, our own family traditions that clashed with the other persons, and we didn't have an understanding of how we were going to treat each other, what roles we were going to take, how we would deal with money, how we would express and receive love, how we would deal with the conflicts that inevitably arose from being in each other's space all the time.

So, I mean, we had our honeymoon, it was awesome, but it was a brief period, and then we realized oh, how much work it actually is to build a strong marriage.

So, as Jarell said, Citizens is one year old as of tomorrow, and I feel like we have come through a bit of a honeymoon period as a community, and we're starting to see our own limitations, the limitations and flaws in other people.

And we may have brought expectations into this venture without even realizing it that we were kind of rubbing up against the reality of being in community with each other.

And if you're newer to this group, and as no of you are, uh don't worry, you'll get there.

We all have to go through this.

So, in order to take this community from the honeymoon phase to something more rich and powerful and purposeful and Christ-like, we need to develop the vision and skills in order to be on beyond just a club and work towards true Christian community.

And to live truly as a family of God takes a lot from us.

Crossing any cultural boundary to form relationships takes intents and it takes empathy and patience and forgiveness.

Uh Philippiansi famously described Christian community as where the person you least want to live with always lives.

Anyone can form a club, but it takes grace, a shared vision, a hard work to form a community.

And the early churches in Corinth and Rome were great examples of people who were figuring out how to live together in this new calling, often getting things wrong, having disputes, and Paul would kind of swoop in and intervene with correction and exhortation.

So as we look at the passage that Sarah just read, we'll come across three postures that can help us grow into maturity as a people.

The first one is true connection over ideals.

The second one is vulnerability, not shame.

And the third one is healthy conflict and resolution, not gossip and grudges.

Paul was writing to the Romans sometime between 55 and 60 AD.

And in about 50 AD, the Jews and Jewish Christians were actually kicked out of Rome by Emperor Claudius.

And then when Claudius died a few years later in 54, Emperor, the new Emperor Nero welcomed them back into Rome.

And so the Jewish Christians who had been kicked out came back to the Roman counterparts and the people who are still in the city and found that their church was very different.

It was more coded in what the Roman way of doing things, their customs, especially around food.

And because sharing a meal, sharing the table was so central to the gatherings at that time, they now had a lot of conflict when they were supposed to be meeting with their brothers and sisters.

And so that and kind of a general sense of unity and how to live together with people who are very different from you was what one of the a lot of the things that Paul was trying to express in his letter to the Romans.

Paul had a lot of experience with a diverse body of Christians uh in the church at Corinth.

In actually in Romans 16, the last chapter, he gives a lot of personal greetings.

And in that he includes both a lot of names from Corinthians who were also sharing their blessings and their tidings to the church in Rome, but also talking to all the people in that church in Rome.

And you read through those names and you find just a melting pot of different types of people.

He had lots of Greeks and Jews and Roman names.

Um, he had slaves and free people, you had male and female, you had young and old, wealthy and common.

It was also unlikely that anybody at the time was born into this community.

So everybody who was there had chosen to be there.

They were compelled by the gospel and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

And Paul writes in this beginning of the letter, the first 11 chapters are him laying out a really strong theological foundation for the faith, giving them something of a foundation that they can build on.

And then in chapter 12, it's not a chapter in the letter, but what becomes chapter 12, he kind of pivots from okay, here's your foundation.

Now let's see how we actually apply that to you as a community.

How do we build from that?

So I've got a slightly different translation here, but verse 10, he talks about in the love of brothers, be tenderly affectionate to one another, and honor preferring one another, not lacking in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.

Be of the same mind toward one another.

Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the lowly.

David Kim is a pastor at a church in the Bay Area called Westgate, which is actually my family's kind of home church in San Jose.

And he's also the author of a book called Made to Belong: Practices for Cultivating Community in a Disconnected World.

And in that he spells out a hierarchy of postures that are crucial to building true Christian community.

And the top one is priority, being present and intentional with whom you spend your time.

Organic interactions can feel great, but they're really not a sturdy foundation on which to build a relationship.

Anyone who's been married for more than two weeks can agree that spontaneous connection is awesome, but if you don't plan date nights, they don't happen in this modern, busy world.

Connecting with people that you may not naturally or organically connect with due to different experiences, life stages, values, et cetera, it takes diligence.

It takes going beyond the expectation of a return on any sort of emotional investment.

When Paul reminds Romans in verse 10 to not lack in diligence, be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord and their community, he's not calling them to emotional love.

He's not calling them to vibes-based interaction, but what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called the sober daily work of relationship building.

And as you can imagine, there are a lot of barriers to this kind of connection.

The first, and maybe the most insipid, is our own ideal for what community can look like.

The emotional connection to a group of believers may be central to our core vision for what a community can be, even if we don't admit it.

We want to be around people we enjoy and feel comfortable around.

That is natural.

But emotional love has its limits.

And in every relationship worth having, we will hit a point of having to choose between choosing a mindset of service and duty or retreating back to safety and comfort.

That point, that choice, is where a Christian community starts.

Bonhoeffer says again, Christian community is in and through Christ, no more, no less.

Those who want more are looking for an emotional experience.

But the end of emotional love is where the Holy Spirit takes over, where we go beyond ourselves into a posture of service, and we can begin to contribute to Christian community.

Those who cling to their ideal of community will either abandon it in the face of adversity or stifle true community, even if they have the best of intentions.

The second enemy of authentic connection is our Western individualism.

We want the ability to control our schedules, to manage our energy, to only commit on our own terms.

And those are just my top three.

I'm sure you have others.

But the freedom to float in and out of relationships at our leisure will kill community.

The ability to step away from a group when it becomes inconvenient or imposing or doesn't meet our expectations is poison to the practice of Christian community.

So, how do we combat those ideals and our need for freedom to establish healthy communities?

I'll give just two quick suggestions that will surprise nobody.

First, at our Sunday gathering, invite somebody to engage.

You don't, I mean, don't walk up to them and say, oh, you're the person I at least want to be around.

So I need to be your friend.

You're better than that.

Don't do that.

But there needs to be a level of intentionality to relationships to start.

And outside Sunday gatherings, reach out to people.

We have so many different ways to connect with each other via Discord, text, email.

The director, I think, is getting updated today.

So everybody should have the ability to reach out to somebody.

And we need to begin to be more people who are not offended by somebody's intentionality.

It takes a lot of strength to receive somebody's attention, intention, and to respect that and engage with them.

But we need to learn, if we agree that community is important, we need to learn to appreciate the directness of others.

Okay, so we've taken the first steps.

What's next once we've put ourselves out there and started to connect with others?

Oh, I wanted to say one.

I know Jarrell in his sermon last week talked about the different ways that we use the word church.

Uh yeah, we use it as a building, as a program, as a Sunday service.

I might posit that we start to use church as a verb.

I'm gonna go church with that person.

I'm gonna go, let's go church together.

It seems a little bit weird, but it's a lot easier than let's go build community.

That that feels a little bit weird too.

But we say, let's go church together, that's you know, doing the work of intentionally building that relationship.

So try to use that in an email sometime in the next week.

Okay, posture number two, vulnerability, not shame.

We need to be willing to share our lives with those around us, unafraid of what they might see, trusting that those who follow Jesus will work toward our own good.

Vulnerability is the second skill and calling that David Kim identifies in his book.

Being willing to share things that expose our hopes, our fears, our frustrations, or biases.

In order for us to truly become community of love, we have no choice but to let others into our own messes.

Is it safe?

No, but it is good.

As C.

S.

Lewis wrote in his classic, The Four Loves.

Yeah, try to read that, sorry.

Um, there is no safe investment.

To love it all is to be vulnerable.

Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.

If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.

Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements, lock it safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.

But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change.

It will not be broken, it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

The alternative to tragedy, or at least the risk of tragedy, is damnation.

The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is hell.

I just love the word perturbations, that's why I put it in here.

Vulnerability, the word itself literally means woundability, the possibility that you might be harmed.

It's not a natural posture.

It goes against everything that we have in our instinct of self-preservation.

The ability to let your guard down is a skill to be honed.

It takes time to develop both within yourself, and it takes time to allow a relationship to develop the conditions for deeper sharing.

It's not an on off switch, but a continuum that you walk together with another person or a group only at the pace.

Of a relationship.

It's not an invitation to become an oversharer.

This level of vulnerability can and should follow the scale of the group that you're in.

I can share my deepest flaws with three to five people, but it would be mostly inappropriate to do so here from the pulpit.

Conversely, you know, I identify as a duck fan.

I see somebody else on the street wearing organ gear, I can say, go ducks.

But I can't go up and say, How's your sister's chemotherapy doing?

without sounding like a stalker.

Nobody can maintain a level of openness with everybody, not even Jesus.

Jesus fed thousands, he preached to hundreds, but he discipled the 12, and he had three with whom he was the closest and shared his shared the most.

I've been a part of nine church communities in my life from the time I was born until now.

Within those nine churches, there have been a number of different small groups of varying lengths and focuses and makeups.

And there are two that I would say have molded my views on what vulnerability can look like.

First is a couples group that Susie and I were a part of in three years in Yakima.

And it consisted of three couples who were all about 10 years our senior, um, one single woman who was about our age.

These couples had young kids.

They had been meeting together for a long time already and had established deep bonds, but they welcomed us in and shared equally from us, equally with us from very early on.

And we would walk through scripture and application and prayer, all kind of the normal small group things, but they would also share very intimate aspects of their lives, what they were struggling with or fighting about in their relationships, uh, their insecurities and barriers to callings at work, how their kids were fraying at their last nerves.

They were letting us into their process with so many raw details sometimes that Susie and I would look at each other on the drive home and just be like, whoa, that was that was intense.

But they would be approaching these topics with a genuine humility, a desire to grow and be like Jesus in their workplace, in their home, in their marriage.

We would sometimes see resolution on these issues.

Sometimes we wouldn't.

Sometimes we would see the Holy Spirit come into a situation and bring peace.

Sometimes we just saw continued struggle.

But we could honestly see growth in everyone as we walk through life those few years together.

And Susie and I found new ways to vent our own frustrations, even about each other, to each other.

We learned how to fight and forgive well, to stand up for ourselves in a posture of wanting the other partner to hear us and to grow deeper together.

As Paul called the Romans to do in verse 15, we rejoice with those who rejoice, and we weep with those who weep.

And it's been many years since we left Yacima to move to Eugene.

Not all community is community for life, but the consistency and the common practice of vulnerability of that small group has informed our approach ever since.

The second example was a men's group that I was invited into.

Um it began with the extreme intentionality of a man named Andy Riley.

I don't know if anybody here actually knows Andy Riley.

Great, I get to make him up.

He was probably the man least capable of small talk of anybody that I've ever met.

Probably the only person I've ever known who actually meant the phrase, how are you, or how are you doing, when he actually said it.

Um he was he was just that level of intentionality all the time.

And when he and his family moved to Eugene in 2012 for him to work at the U of O, he invited a bunch of guys at UFC to join him for a weekly morning accountability group because he knew that it was a need that he had.

He figured other guys would share that same need.

The group membership fluctuated up to about eight guys.

We may have five or six that would meet any each each week.

Um, and when Andy left the state for work a few years later, I took over as the organizer until about 2022.

And the structure of the gathering was built around this card, this connection card, a wallet-sized card that had 10 questions on it.

And we would go through several questions every week with guys sharing what they could around each topic, and then we would pray at the end.

And you know, when you think about a men's accountability group, the first topic that comes to mind is sexuality, lustful thoughts, pornography, et cetera.

And while that was one of the questions, one of the topics of the 10, it was only one of them.

We had other questions that include have you been a good steward of the resources God has given you?

Or have you given work the appropriate amount of attention and effort?

The questions ran the gamut of our experience, but the magic wasn't in the questions.

It was in returning to the same questions over and over again, year after year, and each time being able to go a little bit deeper, kind of like a screw in each rotation.

Pull away layers and expose underlying hurts and hangups.

I could say to somebody, hey, when we talked about this topic a month ago, you said, X, how is that going now?

What have you wrestled with since that time?

How have you got seen God moving through that?

And we would be doing that over and over on each of these topics.

And this is actually where Chris Johnson and I first got to know each other.

I'm going to throw Chris under the bus of sorts.

I didn't really know him that well.

And he was fairly new to UFC.

He was actually fairly new to committing himself to the daily work of the Christian life.

And he was skeptical of uh committing to sharing his personal struggles with other guys.

But he was willing to make the first step and show up each week and be consistent and try, and that made all the difference.

The amount of growth that I saw in him as he learned to share with others was pretty astounding.

And I'm just proud to say that I got to be witness to part of that transformation.

So developing the ability to let our guard down when the setting is right, the vulnerability must be met with empathy, or we will close up and we will retreat into our shells very quickly.

We've all had experiences where we share something risky about ourselves, and then that weakness gets weaponized against us or shared with a wider audience that we didn't intend, or it's laughed at or misunderstood, and nothing will close us up more quickly than that.

And that's a feeling of shame, which is another major barrier to community.

The feeling that if people knew the real me, what I thought or done or felt, that they would reject me.

And as you get deeper and deeper with people, you are going to hit a nerve eventually.

I've been a patient of Susie's often enough to know that even glancing a nerve with a drill bit hurts like the Dickens, even if the doctor's intentions are to fix it and heal.

Shame can cause us to put us those defenses really quickly and not let anyone beyond that surface level to avoid getting close to that nerve that's been touched in the past.

And that's why having a small group of people to truly be vulnerable with is so life-giving.

To wrestle with these hurts in a circle of trust will help you slowly unwrap, let go of the shame, and calm that nerve and let go of the shame that we carry around so much in our lives.

So the main application for this posture of vulnerability is to find a group of people that you are willing to open up slowly with over time.

Chris and I have actually talked about resurrecting the type of men's group within citizens.

So if you're interested in something like that, let he or I know.

Hint you should be interested.

But there are some necessary skills needed for small groups like that to really do their magic.

What's up, Miles?

Okay, verse 17 and 18.

Repay no one evil for evil, respect what is honorable in the sight of all men.

If it is possible, as much as it is up to you, be at peace with all men.

So point three, posture three recognizes that conflict is inevitable, and how we handle this conflict will have a bigger impact on our community than nearly anything else.

I'm a conflict avoider.

I choose flight over fight any day of the week.

I got very good at running for certain reasons.

But Paul was built different.

He did not back down from conflict.

He was writing to a church in the capital of the empire that had conquered and controlled his homeland.

He had been someone to butt heads with leaders of all stripes.

He's not one who backed down, but he preached a radical form of restraint in the face of evil and anger.

So marriage over a lifetime is a training ground for conflict and resolution.

Susie and I have had the privilege to teach through a number of times a course for couples called Love and Respect.

If you've heard of it, it's awesome.

If not, you're hearing about it.

In it, the teacher, whose name is Resplendent, his name is Emerson Egerics.

And in it, he introduced what he calls the crazy cycle and the energizing cycle.

So the crazy cycle starts when one party is harmed.

And we're talking about couples, so we're looking at men and women.

When a man feels disrespected, he responds with unloving words and actions.

When a woman feels unloved, she responds with disrespectful words and actions.

And then the man responds and the woman responds, and we get into what he calls the crazy cycle, kind of a downward tailspin.

And when a couple gets on a crazy cycle, it can end in shouting matches, it can end in stonewalling, but it often will put a couple in a place where they need to separate and cool off and give each other some space.

And then there's a form of kind of a standoff where neither person really wants to break the silence or bring something up or walk back into the minefield of conversation.

And Dr.

Egricks has a fantastic challenge to us at that moment.

He says that whomever sees themselves as the more mature one has to act first, which is such a great gambit because you're either admitting that you are the not as mature as your partner, which cool, good for you, or you can be the one, the one to start humbly and begin the work of reconciliation.

So what happens when somebody does make that step, it's beginning of what he calls the energizing cycle, where a woman feels loved, she acts in a posture of respect towards her husband or partner, and then he feels respected and acts loving towards her, and it builds up and builds up and builds up in a virtuous cycle.

So it's the opposite of the crazy cycle.

And this just doesn't just happen within relationships, it happens within communities of multiple people.

Sometimes when we are hurt, we can respond by gossiping or stonewalling or holding a grudge, and the other party can respond in kind, and then factions are formed and the community well is poisoned.

When there's a party in that conflict that sees themselves as the more mature one, right?

We're all mature.

If they're able to take it among themselves to make the first move, step into that awkwardness with restraint and humility and a goal of reconciliation, the other parties have the opportunity to respond in kind, and the healing can spread.

So the last two skills that David Kim describes in his book are empathy and accountability.

The empathy invites us to respond to those who show vulnerability to us with a posture of gratitude, almost as if we've been given a gift.

The person who shared something risky with us has put a weapon into our hands and entrusted that we will not use it against them.

That's a grave responsibility.

And we must respect it or risk plunging that relationship into a tailspin.

When we have been treated with respect and empathy, we respond with the desire to give that gift to others and an energizing cycle can begin.

Accountability may seem like an odd building block in this chain here, but it's necessary for a healthy community to develop.

It's also important that it is the very last thing on this list: after priority, vulnerability, and empathy.

Accountability reminds us that we are all striving towards a common and understood ideal.

This is the first 11 chapters of Romans, where Paul has laid out the defense of the faith for everybody to get on board with.

We're being formed into people after Jesus' own heart.

We're called to, in love, correct those who may espouse those same aims but may have missed the mark in one aspect.

This is not a blanket permission to everybody to become the Jesus police or to be some sort of holy HOA that rats out all your neighbors.

Accountability must be couched inside an intentional group who have built up the trust over time through vulnerability and empathy with each other.

It's only in that context that a correction by another person can be trusted by the recipient.

So if I believe and trust that you have my best interest in heart, that you have heard me fully, you've heard my side, and you were not going to react out of fear or jealousy or anger, then I'll be much more likely to hear you out and be able to say, I might actually be in the wrong here.

And when that kind of trust builds throughout a community, it's a beautiful thing.

But I mean, as always, there are enemies that resist the efforts to do that.

Gossip and grudges being the two I'll talk about today.

Gossip, we talked earlier about when we make ourselves vulnerable, we open up our flaws to be spread beyond the intended audience.

So sharing the secrets of others betrays the trust that is central to that vulnerability.

Gossip can seem innocuous at times, but it erodes the trust that enables us to open up to each other.

Grudges are kind of the other end of the spectrum.

They can develop over jealousy or perceived slights or many other reasons, but the common result is that you're putting up a barrier between you and another person, often without their even knowing it.

And when we withhold ourselves from that person because of any sort of hurt, it keeps us from experiencing the beautiful gifts of forgiveness.

So that's why Paul says if it is possible, as much as it is up to you, be at peace with all men.

This is a strong foundation for Christian community.

So to build that community, we need our three postures again: connection, not ideals, vulnerability over shame, and healthy conflict resolution, not gifts, not grudges or gossip.

So congratulations, we made it a year.

Great.

We made a church.

Now we get to the fun part of being a church.

Stepping into the daily sober walk of loving each other as ourselves, stepping out beyond comfortable friendships, shedding our preconceived ideals of what a community should be and embracing what it is, being willing to share our flaws and struggles, being willing to hold the flaws and struggles of others very carefully, being the mature ones who step into awkwardness for the good of a relationship and the health of a body.

So, as we wrap up, what discomfort do you feel when you think about citizens right now?

Is it a need to talk to somebody new?

Is it sharing something with a friend that they may not be ready to hear yet?

Is it owning up to something that may have caused a rift?

So that maybe even one so small that you're the only one that notices?

Is it to recognize that you may have a subconscious expectation that you need to let go of?

Congrats.

You're the one that Paul is encouraging in Romans 12.

So take these verses to heart, meditate on them, pray that the Holy Spirit will guide you in the service of others.

Let's pray.

Help us to continue to seek the betterments of all around us, to seek out each other intentionally, to seek the best for one another, to open ourselves up, to give ourselves a posture of vulnerability so that we can grow together as a body.

We pray that your spirit would give us the strength to do that today, tomorrow, for the next year, and for the length of our church.

In your name we pray.

Amen.