Our Nationwide Community

“Community is God’s idea. Only in community can we know and be known, love and be loved, serve and be served, celebrate others and be celebrated by them.” John Ortberg

This past week I’ve been pondering how bizarre Latreia’s community truly is. It exists with two extremes—our close-knit Latreia team members and the strangers-turned-friends we meet along the way…people we know everything about and people we know nothing about. And while I’ve become more and more aware during the past six months of how much the four of us need each other to fulfill our need for community, I found out last week that I have been overlooking the importance of the other half of our community.

Due to an ice storm this past weekend, we cancelled our speaking engagement at church. Since we were also staying at a church last week, we had very little interaction with the Charleston residents. It felt very different from the majority of our weeks…to be in a place and not know anyone nor be known by anyone was a bit disconcerting. Then, on one of our last nights there, we were invited for dinner to a woman’s home who helps with missions at the church where we were staying. The experience was almost like coming home, to an odd degree. Sharing with her, learning about life from her, just being with someone from our temporary community was refreshing. We were known.

It is fascinating to me how God has taken one of our biggest struggles—not belonging to one church home—and provided us with this alternative. Because God created us to yearn for community and He put the desire in our hearts to be in communion with others around us, He has found a way to provide for that need through people we’ve only known for an hour. Instead of one church family, He has given us an entire country of loving people who He intends to be part of our community. It seems to be working...kudos to Him for pulling it off!

Kelly