Vulnerability.

Last night, Bird and I decided we needed a night with just our little family.  We got in the car and just drove thinking we would know what we wanted to do whenever we found something fun.  We ended up at a place called Skyzone.  It is a trampoline park, and Oh.  My.  Word.  It was maybe the liveliest place I've ever seen.  They had basketball and dodgeball....on trampolines.  They had a kid part.  They had a huge pit of foam squares that you jump into.  The kids...and maybe me...geeked out over it.

The entire time I was there, I kept thinking "Who could I bring here??"

My list had exactly three people on it: the hubs, my mom, and my sister.

Don't get me wrong- I could think of tons and tons of people who would probably love this place, but when it came down to who I would actually want to see me jump around like a fool, I had three people I was willing to be vulnerable with.  What a grand community I have amassed.

"Community" is tough for me.

Hebrews 3:13 says, "But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called 'today,' that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin."  So I'm to urge (and be urged) away from sin every day by my community (which, I will exhort you to find this community in a body of believers) so that I may not be hardened by that sin.

So....my church.  This is a great idea, but what does that really look like?

For starters, it means people have to know my sin.  I have to be vulnerable enough to show my sin?  That sounds fun... I literally have left people standing outside my front door knocking because I'm not willing to even be seen without makeup and my hair reasonably fixed.  Showing people the worst of me isn't really my thing.

Proverbs 27:17 says, "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."

So not only do we have to be vulnerable enough to let others in on our heart's ugliest parts, we have to be vulnerable enough to let them sharpen us?  That means we have to allow people in close enough to hurt us.  We have to be willing for people to have things they can use to harm us.  This, my friends, is true community.

Of course, jumping on trampolines probably won't grow you or I spiritually, but breaking down the walls enough to look silly knowing full well that others could make fun of you, maybe that's a good first step.

So let's go roller skating...or running through a splash pad...or go play dodge ball...or jump on trampolines.  Let's have fun together and go do things that we might get a little embarrassed by so we can see what a safe and loving place a community of believers can be.  It might not always be pretty, but I think it will be worth it.

Be vulnerable with me so we can help one another ward off sin.

"May the myth of romantic, frolicking community die on the bedrock of the reality that this will be fought for or never had."