Find Your People: Building Deep Community in a Lonely World

by Jennie Allen

One by one I went to my people and did exactly what I used to be terrified to do: I openly acknowledged that I needed them.

We’ve replaced intrusive, real conversations with small talk, and we’ve substituted soul-baring, deep, connected living with texts and a night out together every once in a while,

If God is in the center of our relational circle, we will be fulfilled, and out of that fulfillment we can bless others. But

We are called to be a community of people, on a mission, delighting in God, delighting in each other, redeemed and reconciling the world, bringing them and inviting them into this family. This is the ultimate purpose of community.

(Being Christian means we have been freed from the slavery of sin but not from the desire of it.)

You will disappoint me. I will disappoint you. God will never disappoint us. Accepting this shifts our expectations from people to God. And He can handle our expectations.

This is the endgame of community: we find our people, and together we build safe, beautiful outposts that offer the love of God.

You and I both desire deep connection. We want someone to know our deepest, darkest secrets and to love us anyway. But that type of community doesn’t come naturally. We have to look for it and then fight to protect it once we have it.

God’s idea of community is deep, intentional, day-in and day-out connection, loving at all times, bearing with one another, sticking closer than siblings, naming every sin, running our races together, encouraging each other as long as it is called today.

Community should, in its truest form, reflect aspects of who God is and how He loves. Which brings me to a question: Who has God put in your life—here and now and right under your nose—that you haven’t really connected with yet?

What are your past relational pains? In what ways have you been hurt?

The enemy’s strategy is to push us deep into shame and sin and to make us feel so isolated and guilty that we would never admit our struggle aloud.

Our sin is worse than we imagine. And the grace of God is bigger and better than we can imagine.

True accountability comes from deep love and care for our people. If our people know we love them, we can bear with one another when our words come out a little wrong. We love them too much to leave them.

We want this kind of accountability. We find rest in it. Truth in love is the safest place to be, even if it stings a little. Iron sharpens iron. It isn’t supposed to be comfortable. But it leads us closer to God and closer to who He wants us to be—and that ends up feeling like home.

what I see everywhere is women cheering for one another, propelling each other forward, laying down their lives to make their world better.

We have to fight to hold on to our people. Let’s notice the traps the enemy is using to divide and distract us from healthy relationships.

God, We need You. There is no other hope but You. We are trusting You afresh or maybe for the first time. Jesus, You were enough for our sins. Thank You that You made a way for us to first be right with God and second to be right with each other. Thank You that You dwell with us. Thank You for giving us a purpose beyond ourselves. Thank You that You have not forgotten us. Thank You that You are preparing a place in heaven for us to be with You forever. But in the meantime, we want heaven to come to earth. We want

Your kingdom to come to earth! And, God, You say that we are the ones to bring it! The Church carries the hope of Your kingdom to the world. So, God, would You heal our broken relationships? Would You help us to live this? God, will You help me personally find deep community? Help me make friends and keep them as I live out my commitment to You: I will build my village and Your Church. I will play my part. I will be honest. I will restore. I will pull people close. I will stay.

Your Word promises we can heal, we can forgive, we can overcome the divisions that threaten to destroy us. So may we be faithful to believe that and to fight for it. God, give us a vision and a hope that is bigger than our human limitations. May Your...