Living in True Community
My family moved to the city of Nashville (Tennessee) this week. For the fifth time in the last two years, my family packed up our belongings in boxes and set off for life in a new geographic location. Given that much practice, we should probably be better at packing and unpacking, but it never fails to devolve from a systematic ordering of suitcases into a frantic stuffing of things wherever we can find space.
If you’ve ever moved, especially with children, then you know what I’m talking about. Moving is messy and chaotic and exhausting.
Which is why our welcome to Nashville was such a blessing when we rolled up to our apartment complex (behind schedule of course) on Tuesday afternoon. As we rounded the corner to park in front of our new home (which can be a heavy term right??), we found our box truck already 75% unloaded by a group of a dozen of my new favorite people.
This group consisted of members of the Trevecca Community Church family - our new church home and where my new job is. Since traveling with a toddler apparently takes more time than driving a box truck, we arrived after my father did in the truck holding our belongings. And so this group of volunteers did a beautiful thing.
They didn’t wait. They just acted and unloaded almost all of our belongings up a flight of stairs and just outside our apartment before we even arrived.
Having loaded that whole truck with the help of just two other people the night before, I could not have been more thankful for their proactiveness.
As I sat in our apartment that night thinking back on the hospitality we had received that day (from the unloading help to a basket of home essentials), I was reminded of a book I read a few months ago by Thomas Friedman. In Thank You for Being Late, Friedman states that true community is not where you say “Let us know if you need anything”. Instead, true community is where you just act in love. Where you identify a need and proactively work to help someone else.
I think that is especially true in the life of the Church. When we are at our healthiest, local churches are places where people are cared for and needs are addressed proactively. Where people care enough to help immediately and where they live life close enough with others to know what the real needs are.
And this week, I was the recipient of this type of community. A community consisting of a group of Christ-followers willing to proactively help and love on our family.
Because true community just does it. It loves lavishly and acts instantly.
True community is love in action.
p.s. - They did happen to also move our neighbor’s full trashcan into our apartment and onto our kitchen counter in the process. Because, very often, true community is messy too!
