I Needed To Be Here

by Peggy Haymes, Pinnacle Associate

Through the windows beyond the sanctuary walls, day slowly faded into evening, and a host of candles were lit through the space.

Our church was having its first ever Candlemas service. Coming forty days after Christmas, this ancient service marks the end of the Christmas-Epiphany season and remembers the child Jesus brought to the Temple by his parents, to be heralded there by Simeon and Anna.

It was a beautiful service of music and readings and a brief meditation. It was a time of collective catching our breath. After the service I heard the same kinds of comments over and over again, from faithful church members, from people who hadn’t been with us for a while, from neighbors down the street from the church visiting for the first time: I needed to be here.

Which, I think is another way of saying, I needed community.

US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy identified a pandemic of loneliness, outlining the psychological, emotional, and physical consequences of a lack of connection. This is a place where the church has both gifts and calling to reach out to the world’s need.

One example of community building can be seen in Navigating GriefLand. This is a small group curriculum from Pinnacle for people who have experienced loss, but it is also a community building space. That’s intentional.

• The group begins by setting norms for how we will be with each other, how we practice welcome, the hospitality of creating a space for each one’s story and how we honor those stories by how we hear them and the confidentiality with which we hold them.

• Instead of being a support group where people drop in and out, it’s a community building group in which participants walk together for the full eight weeks.

• It offers a space in which people can share their unique experience of a common transition. People discover they are not the only ones to feel what they feel and to struggle with the things that are hard for them.

• In essence, the small group experience gives them a chance to know and be known.

As a result, leaders are seeing both tight bonds between group members at the end of the eight weeks as well as surprising connections early in the process. From Pinnacle Associate and pastor Rhonda Blevins: “I just got out of the first session of the second ‘Navigating GriefLand’ course I've led for my congregation. Even in the first session, the level of depth and sharing was surprising, especially given that most of the dozen or so people didn't know each other.”

In our isolated times, how might your congregation foster community?

(To learn more about Navigating GriefLand, contact Peggy Haymes.)