Last night we gathered with our small group around a dinner table, sharing a meal and stories about what’s been going on in our lives. What’s remarkable is that we’ve been doing this consistently for years, and it never gets old. In fact, I found almost the exact same journal reflection from this time a year ago as I was writing last night.

Last night after leaving our gathering of families I wrote, tonight was a good reminder that we all need spaces where we can be seen and known. 

A year ago on this same day I wrote, I love our small group. Just powerful conversations and it’s a safe space that I really feel seen and heard in. 

This past month we’ve needed to lean on our community more as our world was rocked with the sudden passing of a close friend. We’ve gotten to experience one another spring into action to provide support and care. We’ve been on both the giving and receiving end of it, and it’s a testament to how community works.

The best thing about community is not even needing to ask for help. We’re busy people, we could have all found reasons not to show up. Thank God we do show up though. It was like sending out the bat signal to our friends and they came with just the right response.

That got me thinking, is it really ever too late to build community?

Take our small group for example. We’re a collection of families, parents with kids ranging from pre-k to high school, couples who have been married for 5-20 years, all trying to figure out how to do life together. Before starting to meet, we didn’t know each other. All we knew was that we wanted to be in deeper relationship with other folks in our seasons of life, asking some of the same questions about how to be better partners, parents, and people in this world.

This is the second such group I’ve joined and both times I was skeptical. How would this work? What if I didn’t like the people? What if we didn’t have any shared interests? There’s plenty of excuses for why not to build community, all you need is one to do it.

We’ve seen each other through births of children, loss of children, cancer diagnosis, deaths of loved ones. We’ve dialogued about things that impact our lives in different ways including race, politics, faith, parenting, money, communication, you name it. The point was never to win an argument, it’s always been to grow. Some of my deepest growth as a person, father, and husband has come from these experiences.

That’s why I say, your community is likely hiding in plain sight. It could be the people you work or go to school with. It might be the dads you hoop with on Sunday evenings. Look around you, and you’ll likely find relationships begging to be cultivated. If this past month has taught me anything, it’s never too late to activate the community around you.

SDW3