Building Blocks of Biblical Community

 

Ice breaker questions:

  • What is your dream house?
  • What is your dream church?

 

Overview:

Self-disclosure: Know and be known. Corporate America will teach that to be a leader you must keep aloof – try to maintain a “mystique.” But self-disclosure should also exemplify the leader, the leader must model openness

Care-giving: Love and be loved

Humility: Serve and be served

Affirmation: Celebrate and be celebrated, living the life of joy, the events of life matter

Truth-Telling: Admonish and be admonished

Maturing: Shepherd and be shepherded; are you “guilting” or “guiding”?

 

Exercise: Break the group up into smaller groups. Have them assign a secretary to keep BRIEF notes of the findings. Give them 10-15 minutes to discuss the following questions:

Which does our group do well? Which needs work or attention?

  • Self-disclosure
  • Care-giving
  • Humility
  • Affirmation
  • Truth-telling
  • Maturing

 

Self-Disclosure: Know and be Known

“In a moment of complete honesty, I think we would all love it if there were some people in our lives who trusted us enough to discuss the deep and tender parts of themselves. I think we would love to be able to unlock some of the vaulted feelings we carry to people who really cared. Most of us gravitate toward friendships, dating, marriage, golf leagues, racquetball clubs or a small group because somewhere floating around within us is a yearning to know and be known by others.” – Bill Hybels, Community

 

Five Levels of Communication

  1. Cliché
  2. Facts and Information
  3. Thoughts and opinions
  4. Feelings
  5. Peak communication, confession

Note: You cycle through these because you can’t stay at peak. It’s exhausting. But if you never reach peak your group is useless.

 

Barriers to Self-Disclosure

(One of these days I’m going to have everyone take card stock and string and write on it one thing they struggle with and hang it on their necks!)

  • Fear – of rejection, of looking foolish, of unwanted overtures, of over commitment…
  • Bad Communication – Nobody drifts into good communication skills. It takes conscious effort – work.
  • Been Burned – Therefore I don’t talk, trust, feel or expect

 

Exercise in Communication:

List some appropriate responses to a fellow who shows up without his wife disclosing that he and his wife are seriously considering divorce.

 

Bad Responses:

We saw it coming what did you expect?

Does this mean you won’t be bringing desert?

Can I have her phone number?

You deserve better anyhow.

Give us the dirt. Gossip about it.

I know a good lawyer.

I thought you were a Christian.

God hates divorce.

Changing the subject suddenly.

Here’s what you need to do.

We don’t tolerate that here. If that happens you know you’re facing discipline.

 

Appropriate Responses:

Take it immediately to prayer. Be careful to not preach during prayer.

Verbal response indicating you’re listening non-judgmentally.

Direct them to appropriate help.

Direct the group as to what is inappropriate.

Put the brakes on too much intimate details until wife can be there.

Watch nonverbal cues.

Ask how are you feeling?

Assign someone to walk through it with them and then report back to the group.

 

“People are longing to rediscover true community. We have had enough of loneliness, independence and competition.”  - Jean Vanier

 

Gateways to Self-Disclosure

  1. Risk taking: lead them into this, model vulnerability, you cannot lead where you yourself will not go.
  2. Confidentiality: be willing to step in and remove a person from the group for breaking confidentiality.
  3. Ice breakers: these must be done throughout the lifetime of the relationship; not silly, must have a point, use creative and leading questions, their answers give you snapshopts of the inner workings of their minds, this leads to self-disclosure. 1001 questions by Gary Poole; 201 Good Questions by Serendipity House.
  4. Story Telling: family background, experiences, old jobs, when you tell your story people will find a place to connect with you.
  5. Time: take time, don’t watch the clock, community comes with spending unhurried time with each other.

 

“Assign top priority to your relationships. Ironically, we tend to devote massive amounts of time to making money, running errands and succeeding at our jobs, but we neglect giving our most valuable possession – time – to the experience for which we were created – community.” – Alan McGinnis.