Don't Look Down

I was sitting at breakfast this morning with one of the community group pastors from my church. We talked about life for a little while and then he transitioned into a conversation about our community group. Sarah and I lead a group at Fellowship Bible Church in Brentwood, TN. A few months ago, we were asked to give the members of our group a survey about the strengths and weaknesses of our group as a whole. We gave the survey one night at our gathering and told them to fill it out and then put it in an envelope all while Sarah and I stood awkwardly out on the back porch while they filled them out. I neglected to tell them that we wouldn't be reading the surveys so they filled them out and gave the strengths and weaknesses but also including funny trivial things like "we should have different chips with Taco salad" or "not enough Goat Cheese salads". As you can tell, we eat a lot of salads in our group. This morning was the first time that I heard this feedback. Doug, the community group pastor did a great job of setting it up by asking me what I thought we did well on in community and what I felt like we could do better. After I communicated those things, he reached for a folder and pulled out the results of the survey. I was a little nervous when he started reading the results but everything was, for the most part really encouraging.

Doug started talking about a book that he had read called "Walking the small group tightrope" and this was something that really stuck out to me this morning. The premise is that there is this tightrope between truth and caring. This gets played out in relationships in that to care without truth isn't really caring and that truth without care is legalism. I have spent time on either end of this line and looking back, it seems that the gospel of love gets played out the most effectively somewhere out there in the middle. It can be a scary step but love calls you onto the tightrope.