Doing life

Truth be told, I love colloquialisms. Moving to Belfast from Canada got that much more awesome when someone asked me “are you okay there?” which I quickly found out means “can I help you?”. Amazing. Some of my other favourites include, but are not limited to, the following “faffin' about”, “minger/mingin”, “eejit”, “your man there”, “that's dead on”. As well as ending your sentence with “like”, “but” and “just”. I may not be able to say any of those things in an Irish accent but I can pull it off. I still refuse to say “wee” or call cookies "biscuits". Now coming from another country and growing up with the family I have, I brought with me my own colloquialisms (“for reals”, “sketch”, “wicked cool”, “sorry”, “epic”, “totally”, “heck yes!”, adding “eh” to the end of my sentences and adding “bear” to the end or middle of someone's name. For example, my sister calls her husband ‘Rybear’, his name is Ryan). One that has seemed to have caught on, other than “come on now” or “that's awesome” is “let's do life together!”.

Part of being Redeemer Central, or really (let’s hope) just being a Christian, means that we need to learn how to ‘do life’ together. I learned how to ‘do life’ though from a group of people I call my ‘summer friends’. Those were the days when I wasn’t sure about church, or these people that call themselves Christians and I just did whatever I wanted and these people were cool with it. My summer friends did everything together - cooked meals, read in coffee shops, built skateboard ramps and set them on fire, partied. They all lived in one house, and they always helped each other out. It wasn’t a question, and they all seemed to enjoy being with each other.  You didn’t have to make plans to spend time with these people. There was no ‘penciling in’ or meeting up for an hour in between work and some other engagement you’d really rather not go to… we would just spend the day doing whatever needed to be done. You would pitch up and join in. It was great. I loved being in that type of community and really wanted that to be something that was modelled among us as a church, not because it’s the right thing to do but because we like each other and recognise life is better when you’re not alone.

But, you know what, it is the right thing to do! Jesus did it his whole life. First, with His family (Luke 2:44) and then with His disciples (read any one of the Gospels.)  I’‘m sure while they were travelling around, you know, doing miracles and healing people, they slept on the ground, and ate their meals together and basically hung out - all the time. So that’s what I mean when I say ‘do life’.

So yesterday a group of us made a short film. We thought at most it would take an hour or two to do. It turned into a whole day and it was awesome! We started with coffee in the morning and then headed out to our location. Our short film project got shut-down a few times due to another big budget film being done across the street and then lack of insurance. It all became a bit much for what we were really doing. 

As we were waiting on permission from someone to film on their ground we ate lunch, relaxed, had some meaningful and non-meaningful conversations. Mandy took Sarah to an engagement of sorts. The boys and I headed back to our location. Then had to find a new location ...we ended up at Quaker’s Cottage. We shot the video, hung about, headed home and ended the evening with pizza and ‘The Shawshank Redemption’. We had so much fun spending the day, obviously with an objective, but taking our time and still also doing the regular things we had to do.

So if someone has got to buy groceries, I go with them. If someone else needs to run errands, I’m all up for coming along just to hang out. If I’m sitting in a coffee shop I would love nothing more than for someone to show up and sit down and read with me.  ‘Doing life together’ doesn’t mean you have to be constantly talking or having meaningful conversations. It can just be two people reading. Community should not be an effort or an obligation. It might be hard, but we should enjoy being in community, even if it gets hard.

When you’re in community together you get to know people. You get to understand their quirks, how they think, how they respond, what gets them pumped, and what breaks their hearts. I’ve found it helps me grow as a person because you learn about other people and about yourself because you’ve got different perspectives. When we’re in community with each other and with God we learn how to become more like Christ as we work out how to share - ideas, opinions, our troubles, what’s in our hearts, what’s in our heads and the things that resonate in our souls. It allows us safely to smooth out those rough areas in our lives because we’re being challenged and encouraged by people who know us for real.

Isn’t that better than being criticised by someone who doesn’t know where you’ve come from or where you’re going and is probably not doing it out of love?

My mother always reminded me that at the end of the day people just want to be loved and accepted above all else, and that’s why community is the back-drop and the running theme through the Bible. We need to be in it.

We need to ‘do life’ with each other.

Comments

Great post leah - I love the idea of ‘doing life’ together as a church.

By David Capener. Posted on Friday 18th Sep 2009 at 19:56

I like!! Particularly the part about not having to diarise appointments to meet with friends, scheduling dinners & coffee dates weeks in advance. Is it a cultural thing that makes us do that? Or is it all about work & pressure? Maybe if we had less work pressures, ‘doing life’ in an impromptu way would be a lot easier.

By Emma Keenan. Posted on Friday 18th Sep 2009 at 22:03

I guess its striking the balance of being intentional as well though - particularly as churches/communities grow - I guess we have got to be doing both.

By David Capener. Posted on Saturday 19th Sep 2009 at 07:53

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