Habits of Grace

Being in community with other believers doesn’t always come easily for me. Churches are a large collection of people who outside of their faith might never cross paths let alone desire to forge a friendship. I enjoy the familiarity of being with people who really know me. I know that getting to that point in any relationship takes a lot of quantity time, many “get to know you” conversations, and maybe sometimes awkwardness as you allow yourself to become comfortable with the silence that will come at some point.

In 2019 I moved back to Perth from Port Hedland with my husband and young son. We had started attending Kingscross and made it to two or three services before going into the first COVID lockdown. On one of our first weeks, we were invited to join a “Community Group.” We had been part of these in different churches before, with varying success. We would be meeting via Zoom, and with an emotional 2-year-old who was allergic to sleep, I was less than enthusiastic about this prospect. Part of me felt like putting it in the “too hard” basket. Afterall, we already had family in Perth whom we would see one or two evenings a week, and we would be going to church every Sunday anyway. Despite my hesitations, we decided to commit to the group.

Alas, we had made it through a couple of months of Zoom catch ups and were finally ready to meet in person. As we sat huddled around the fire on a chilly night in May, a motley group of people who were strangers a couple of months before, I have to admit, I felt vulnerable and unsure. I still didn’t really know these people. It is easy to hide some things behind a screen, and there had been more going on in my life than I had let on. In person, it is much harder to hide.

The past year had been a hard one. We had been through three miscarriages and I had just found out I was pregnant again. I felt extremely anxious, and it was getting harder to hope for a successful pregnancy. I hadn’t planned on telling the group. We hardly even knew these people! We should at least wait a few weeks, I told myself, just to make sure everything was alright. I was constantly on edge, every little niggle I thought could be signalling the end of another pregnancy. If you are anything like me, being asked “are you okay?” when you are definitely not okay, is a guaranteed way to get the tears flowing.  

So, when someone asked “how are you, Gen?”, the floodgates opened, and suddenly my heavy burden was being shared by four more people. The relief was instant. One friend knelt and prayed for little Maya, who was the size of a pea at the time. And every week we rejoiced together when a scan would show her growing normally. This was just the start of many shared trials and joys that we traversed as a group.

There is a Swedish proverb I heard once that has always stuck with me. It is “shared joy is double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow.” This is also Biblical! 1 Corinthians 12: 26-27 says “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” How beautiful to share in life’s joys and sorrows with people who have the same ultimate joy, which is Christ.

This forged out time for community with other believers is something we are called to as Christians. However, especially in the world today, it is not normal or comfortable to start or maintain a habit like this. It requires intentionality and perseverance. It requires dragging your feet to the car when you have had a particularly hard week and would rather stay curled up on the couch bingeing Netflix. It requires letting your guard down to respond with more than “good thanks” when asked how you really are. And it requires the love and grace of Jesus flowing through you to see others in your community as Jesus does: broken, restored and washed with His blood. Especially when the people you are called to love are not the ones you would naturally pick as friends.

Most weeks for the past three years we have bundled one, then two, and now three kids into the car and travelled to be with our community for a shared meal and few precious hours of fellowship on a Wednesday night. The children spend the drive listing the names of our group members and giggling with excitement to be with them again. It feels normal now, but it hasn’t always been easy, and it has involved some sacrifice. Some weeks I miss half of our time together because the kids just won’t fall asleep. Sometimes I can barely keep my eyes open as I sink into the couch. Sometimes I can’t remember anything that we have discussed the next day. But simply being in the presence of these people is enough- people who know me and care deeply for me, who have been with me week in and week out through life’s mountains and valleys, and who wish to Jesus as the King of their life and encourage me to do the same.  

Our Community Group has grown since its humble beginnings, and there are many things that could divide our Group. Our political views don’t always align, we have different approaches to raising kids, different cultural upbringings and influences, and different hobbies and interests. Tim Keller has said “Community grows naturally out of shared experience, and the more intense the experience, the more intense the community.” Though the seasons change, and people come and go, one thing remains constant with any group of believers: we have all been through the same intense, life-altering experience, which is coming to know Jesus and his purifying grace. We have died to ourselves and been raised to a new life in him. You can’t beat that intensity! Our identity is rooted in Christ, and this is what unites us. I encourage you to find a community of believers who you can share life’s joys and burdens with, in the flesh. Make it a priority- every week if you can! I can guarantee it will be worth the sacrifice.