Month: July 2007

Jonathan sets out the napkins


Jonathan sets out the napkins
Originally uploaded by Jonathan D. Blundell.

We just wrapped up our first monthly “dinner club” at Casa de Blundell. We had a great time 13 adults and one baby Gracelyn. Our last guests left just before 11 p.m. and we enjoyed some great Mexican food made by all. Aaron and I also partook in some good imported Mexican beer before it was all said and done.
Tonights menu:
Cheese poppers and bacon wrapped jalape̱os РShane and Sarah
Chips, queso and guacamole – Richard and Amber
Beef enchiladas – Blundells
Chicken enchiladas – Josh and Shalyn
Beef fajitas and guacamole – Smiley and Shari
(amazing) Apple cinnamon wraps with vanilla ice cream – Aaron and Keri
We were surprised we were able to get 13 people seated in our humble abode, but we did it and then played a game of Boxers or Briefs afterwards.
We also took two of our old digital cameras and set them out for everyone to snap random photos as they saw fit. One of them has a busted LCD screen on it – so it made for some fun interesting pics. You can see them all on my Flickr account.
A great time had by all I do believe. We’re ready to start planning our next monthly dinner club meeting for next month. Check your e-mail you might be invited. Spaces are limited – we’ll start drawing names from the hat again soon.

The desire for community

I’m still amazed at how often I hear about the desire people have for community – yet so often we’re “too busy” to take time to build relationships, or we’ve “been burned too many times” to take a risk on another relationship.
Even folks who love freelancing and working on their own still desire to build community in their own away-from-work environments.
“The idea for me is forming deep connections with the people who are there,” Brad Neuberg said in a recent video he and other co-workers made. Co-working is a movement to create a community of cafe-like collaboration spaces for developers, writers and independents. “I go to bars and I see lots of people standing around and no one talks to each other and I don’t know why. Yet I go to a house party with lots of people standing around but they’re talking because there’s a shared context… How do you get that magic of a shared identity?”

These programmers have found a way to build community around open source software and technology. As a church we have the common identity of Christ and His salvation yet sometimes you can feel the loneliest at church or around other Christians. How do we build that bridge and knock down those walls?

Some tips from the co-workers for building community and community spaces:

  • Start talking about it
  • Be open with your process
  • Be very sharing
  • The more you give the more you’ll get
  • Be willing and patient in your pursuant of community