4 Challenges That Kill Community

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How to grapple with time, avoidance, strange people, and unrealistic expectations?

Bill Search | posted 3/01/2010

Topics:	Community, Difficult people, Group dynamics, Intimacy, Time management, Trust
Filters:	Coach, Director, Group Leader, Train
Purpose:	Fellowship
References:	Matthew 25:40 , 1 John 4:20-21
Date Added:	March 01, 2010

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Building communities within our church is hard work. It shouldn't be hard work, since God created us for community. But we live in a broken world that has altered and inhibited the relationships God created us to enjoy. For that reason, it's helpful for us to examine the different road blocks that often prevent communities from being formed, and that damage communities that used to be healthy.

In my experience, here are four of the biggest community killers that we as church leaders have to overcome.

The Challenge of Time

The first challenge to cultivating relationships is also the most valuable commodity in our western world today. People talk about this commodity in the U.S. like some people in the developing world talk about food or water. You know what it is, of course. It's time! We simply don't have enough time.

I was standing in the atrium of my church a year ago handing out cards about our small groups. A young couple came up to me and began to chat. They were newly married. When I asked if we could connect them with a group, they explained that they would like to do it down the road, but they were really busy right now. I almost laughed in their faces. I have three kids, a demanding job, and a home to maintain. Busy? They don't know anything about being busy. But it's a common song today, isn't it?

Do you know what most people are busy doing? In a typical week, people spend most of their time at work. The second biggest consumer of time is sleep. Both of those are necessary. However, do you know what the third most time-consuming activity is? Watching television.

According to the Nielsen Media service, the average American watches nearly 5 hours of TV a day. That's 35 hours a week and over 1,500 hours per year. Let me break that down another way. The average American watches 1.5 days of TV per week. That turns into 78 days per year—which is 1.6 months out of every year watching television! So, an average person who lives to be 70 will spend 5,460 days of their life watching TV. If you're not so good at math, that's 15 years. Fifteen years!

If churches and small groups are going to deal with this community killer, we must challenge people to really look at what is keeping them busy. Randy Frazee addressed the craze of the busy life in Making Room for Life. As developers of community, part of our mission will be to help people find the time they need to make relationships a priority.

The Challenge of Avoidance

The second challenge to cultivating relationships is what I would call avoidance. This happens in a relationship when you know you need to deal with some conflict or problem, but you just can't.

My first real job is a good example of this. Right out of college I served on staff with a man named Fred. Fred was a championship talker. You could mention any subject and he'd wax on about it for minutes that felt like hours. Fred had a thought about everything. Now, I'll be transparent for a minute here—I'm a talker, too. I come from a long line of talkers, ramblers, and conversation dominators. (But since I'm writing this and not Fred, I will say that Fred had my talkativeness beat hands down.) Anyway, Fred and I pretty much controlled all the words on our staff of eight people. This went on for months. Every staff meeting, every lunch was like a ping-pong match between Fred and me. Every now and then we'd take a breath and someone else would talk, but then we were back at it.

I didn't know this was a problem. (I was too busy talking). But after several months, our boss pulled me aside and asked, "Did you know that after meetings Sara goes back to her office and cries?" I couldn't understand why. Then my boss explained that Sara—who was a bright seminary graduate—couldn't get a word in edgewise thanks to Fred and me. For months our group had avoided the ugly truth that two talkers were killing the dynamic. But it took just one courageous guy to step up challenge us. I'm glad he did! Our group was dramatically better after that. If my boss had avoided the problem, our group would have continued to suffer. And I wouldn't have grown as a person and become more reflective about how I contribute in a group of people.

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Paulette

November 15, 2010 3:46pm

A pastor's wife once told me similarly that God has sent the strange people to us because we need them and God is watching how we will respond.

Clossou

August 23, 2010 6:52am

God bless. want know more about small group

writinginsand

March 04, 2010 12:25pm

It is hard to "put your finger on" the things that make small group dynamics difficult. Bill Search puts words to some of those feelings accurately in this article. There are certainly more than four things that can kill small groups, but these are significant ones, and difficult to talk about.