We’ve been on a grand adventure this summer at church with our Summer Vacation emphasis, Discipling Through Community, (see my post June 10th). This past Sunday, June 29th we continued to see how people are hungry for a feeling of community, of belonging to a larger family. We had a picnic. Nothing high tech, nothing that flashy, just bouncy houses, a dunking booth, food and squirt guns. We mixed in a lot of food, some music, threatening weather, and did I already say, squirt guns.

Around 550 people came! The really cool part was how many were brand new faces, people I didn’t know. Someone remarked that the crowd looked like a community outing, not an internal church event, because there were so many people that were new. Everyone had a great time. People said, “we need to do this every month”. Every month would be a challenge, but the message was clear. People want more opportunities to spend time together and have fun. We want to hang out with people older than we are. We want to hang out with people that are younger than we are. We want to hear your stories, we want to be a part of your life.

We don’t know where this is going to end. We’re just going to keep providing opportunities for people to build community with each other, and let God do the rest.

Yesterday was the 4th of July.  Living in Florida I celebrated at the beach like a lot of other people; shame on me.  Back on March 30th I posted about the scary people I saw at the beach.  Guess what, they’re still going to the beach!  For the most part, they are still snow white, although a lot have graffiti, they are still large, and they still wear swim suits that are way too small.

I think it is only a matter of time before a lot of “them” start buying the Speedo LZR Racer suit.  The LZR (pronounced lazer) is the suit that is helping swimmers set records in most events at the Olympic trials.  The suit does it’s magic by reshaping a swimmers body in “drag areas” of your body, buttocks, breasts and upper thigh, by inserting on the suit, slippery, polyurethane panels that “compress and reshape” those body parts. These panels compress the body with 70 times more force than nylon.

Don’t misunderstand why “they” will be buying the LZR.  It’s not because of the re-shaping, it’s because the LZR will be the hot suit to buy, and they know they are hot.

The University of Georgia ends a rough week on a sad note as UGA VI dies. He lived a dog’s life that was incredible. He will be missed.

Yes the Dawgs won the College Baseball World Series.  Unfortunately for me and other UGA fans, it was another Dawg team.  They kicked the UGA Dawgs.  We did not play like JunkYard Dawgs in the last couple of games.  Well to quote some Gators out there, “just wait until next year”. (It was our third trip to Omaha in the last five years).

There’s a lot of talk about how UGA is going to do in the fall, when football season rolls around. Before we get to September, there’s another DAWG in the house.

UGA advanced to the championship round at the College Baseball World Series yesterday.

Go get’m you Hairy Dawgs!

No kidding, today was the first day of summer.  The calendar has finally caught up with the temperature and the humidity. In Florida, you now schedule your yard work early in the morning or late in the afternoon to be able to survive.  Getting wet from the summer showers is common, you have to get used to being wet. The beaches are loaded. I went to a nearby Starbucks today and it was different: very quite, very empty, very unusual, very non-community, everyone must have been building community at the beach.  Is there Wi-Fi at the beach?  We’re  having a blast building community at our Summer Vacation gig at church.  People are connecting with each other.  Lots of laughter.  Lots of great stories. Lots of excitment.  I taught “in big church” this past Sunday.  I challenged people to get involved at many different levels; there was a great response.  It looks like it’s going to be a very good summer.

I’ve been gasping for air as you can see from the lack of recent posts. Back on 5/31 and 6/1 I posted about Building Community, and a grand experiment we were employing at my church. I’m gasping to say, that it has been a smashing success so far. As a staff we felt a participation number of 100 - 140 would be considered a win….then it happened. On the sign-up Sunday before we launched on Wednesday, 350+ signed up! When we realized the size of the sign-up for Summer Vacation, we went into overdrive to handle the crowd. Tables were rented, additional supplies were purchased, more childcare workers were hired, new support teams were recruited, and we started.

People showed up! Lots of people….and they all had a ball. The buzz has been unreal. Everyone is talking about Summer Vacation. More people have signed up since the first week and tomorrow we’ll be jamming to summer beach tunes and making new friends.

People were starving for community. Cross generational Summer Family units were created, and it was a huge win.

Here is a clip that shows how much fun it can be, to build community, laugh a lot, make new friends, and study some scripture in a world of happy chaos: Summer Vacation Video

Pray for this crazy team of leaders I’m a part of, as we help people connect with each other, and connect with God.

Back in April I posted about the high price of gas, (if I could only find gas that cheap today), and my struggle with the price, by avoiding filling up. Since that post I’ve talked to several people who have quit filling up too. Today I see that there are a lot more of “us” than I realized, and its only going to get worse. Check out this article on how things are going: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h_pBHt4uai833YU0eHHA6gM5ZdnAD911IQVO0.

Here are the next five community limiters:

6. Be physically present but mentally absent
When talking to someone, pretend to listen by nodding your head and saying “uh huh” while you are really thinking about what show comes on TV later that night. Basically, just don’t engage anyone on any level. After all, you’re just there to put in your “time” and then get on with your life.
7. Don’t share a meal
If you goal is to avoid community, this step is of the utmost importance, don’t ask people to lunch! Sharing a meal is an intimate thing that creates deeper relationships. So, when someone asks you to lunch fake a stomach ulcer or something, just get out of it.
8. Stay very, very busy
The busier you are, especially on a Sunday, the less time you have to “deal” with people. In fact, attempt to be so busy that when speaking to someone you never even stop walking past them as you say hello.
9. Make your default response “everything is great”
People will always ask how you are doing. Make sure that you have your “default” answer ready so that when they ask you are ready to say, “everything is great!” This must be your default response, otherwise you might actually let on that your life is not perfect, or worse, that you are struggling. This colossal mistake could lead to deeper conversation and deeper relationship. If you are going to really avoid community while in church, this is probably your best weapon.
10. Don’t show up
This is definitively your best method of avoiding community overall because there is no community where there are no people.

We’re exploring ways to build community at my church. We get mixed signals from people that attend our church about the friendliness of the people. Maybe muddy-signals-based-on-longevity is a better descriptor.

New people walking in the door tell us we’re very friendly, that they felt welcomed, that people were very nice to them, all good things. More established attenders, (the more established you are the more entrenched you are and the more you are connected to other entrenched attenders), will comment:” Who are you talking about?”, “I don’t know that family”, “I wish there was a way to get to know the younger people”, not very good feedback.

To help create opportunities for creating community we’ve started doing some mixer things on Wednesday around the mid-week-church-meal. The Wednesday mixer opportunities will help only a sub-group of the church. This summer we’re taking it to a new level. We’re hooking our Sunday services to our Wednesday night experience, with Wednesdays being cross generational, very interactive and include everyone in your family, except for the youngest preschoolers. Artificial summer family units are being created to mix people up. It’s going to be fun.

With all that we’re doing to create community, I think it would be good to look at some things that limit or tear down community. Here are the first five community building limiters that we can experience during a Sunday morning worship service time (the time when most churches have the largest number of people on campus:

1. Keep conversations short.
   You are busy, you have a lot to deal with in your life, if you talk to someone you might get close to them and that takes time and energy that you don’t have. Just keep it short and sweet, don’t bother talking about anything more than the weather. If you don’t know a person is hurting, then you don’t have to do anything about it.
2. Always sit in your “assigned” seat
   By always sitting in the same seat you always sit around the same people. These folks know the deal, and stick to the appropriate 30 second conversations: weather, sports, how the new preacher is doing, etc. Also, this keeps you from having to venture out, meet new people, and possibly sit next to someone you aren’t familiar with.
3. Avoid new people
   It’s one thing to deal with all the people that you already know at church, but it’s another to actually meet new people. Seriously, you aren’t good with names; you don’t have the time, or the energy, so just walk right past anyone you don’t know. After all, they won’t notice that you totally avoided them.
4. Come in late
   Don’t overlook the beauty of this one. By coming in late you totally avoid even the 30 second conversations. And (bonus), you avoid the new people! It just makes life easier.
5. Leave immediately after the service (or early)
   This has the same benefits as coming in late, with the added benefit of getting on the road more quickly to beat those other churches to eat. This way you get out of that crowded church building so that you can go sit with your people and eat a meal. If you add this method with the coming in late method you could go to a church for years and never meet anyone.

Do any of these sound familiar? Tomorrow is Sunday. Look around and see how many people are using some of these five community limiters. Take a look at yourself. You may be surprised at how you may have fallen into a routine that employs some of these five. Tomorrow I’ll share five more.