Belonging is commitment

I recently read Search to Belong by Joseph Myers. Myers makes some strong points but ultimately he falls short on the purpose of the church. Myers seems to think that because people have limitation, the church should not encourage deeper relationships. I guess he presumes that most people are already at or near capacity. I don't think that is true. In fact, I think most people are looking for more personal and more intimate relationship, but struggling to find them. That is they struggle to find the godly form of those relationships and thus relationships often are a burden not a joy.

While Myers has some good point, particularly the need for the church to cultivate relational environments rather than to create artificial relationships through programs, I think the table below demonstrates the difference between my point of view and his. He sites the work of Bullard and seem to think that the "Community" is the goal of the church. (I'd actually argue that it is the goal of current culture.) I think that Family is the relational goal of the church. I added to Myer's summary of Bullard in thoughts in the last column and the last three.

Relational perspectives from 4 different church models*

	Committees	Teams	Communities	Family Communities
Formation	Elected or appointed according to rules	Recruited or drafted to work on specific project	Voluntarily connected in search of genuine and meaningful experiences	Voluntary commitment, often unspoken, based on common experiences and a need for one another
Focus	Making decision or setting policies	Maturing to performing tasks more effectively	Add qualitative relationship, meaning, and experiences to the organization, organisms or movement	Move to meet the best of all—individually and as a unit
Membership	Fixed term	Serve for life of project	No bounded membership and members come and go as interest dictates	Members are received with both family and individual accept adoption; Membership loss is mourned
Outside Assistance	High quality training and consultants	Partner with respected practitioners or coaches	Align with advocates who come alongside	Relate to outsiders as extended family
Recruitment	People of respect	People of expertise	People of passion	People of mutual love
Benefits	Build loyalty to mission	Create effect action	Provide enthusiasm	Create an environment of unconditional love
Style of Work	Making lasting decisions and manage resources	Debate strengths and weaknesses to develop the best product	Dialog to arrive at the best solution	Seek wisdom with reliance on patri/matriarchs to ensure the most loving decision for all
Sharing	Share mission but seldom power			Share love both inwardly and outwardly
Reproduction	Look to created purpose for subcommittees or department	No real reason unless a new project comes long	Based on an individual or segment of the membership discovering an following a new passion together	When younger members mature an begin a family of their own
The Lost	At worst: a thread to the organization At best: another project for another committee	At worst: Something that slows productivity At best: A hill to conquer together	At worst: A distraction for the communities goals At best: The passion	At worst: A threat to the family At best: Objects for expanding the circle of love

* Adapted and expanded from George Bullard’s “Abandon Committees, Skip Teams and Embrace Communities” as summarized in The Search to Belong by Joseph R. Myers, pg. 14-15. (The shaded area represents Bullard’s work.)