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
