Crowded Loneliness

From 2007-2010, Sarah and I served with an organization called Youth With A Mission (YWAM), an organization dedicated to training and sending missionaries. Our training center, which also served as our home, was  a large manor in England called Holmsted Manor located in the English countryside (about 90 minutes south of London). We trained and lived with up to 80 different individuals from different countries and denominational backgrounds. We shared living space, but not always the same preferences. We shared chores and responsibilities, but not always the same priorities. But it was in this unique setting that I was challenged into a type of community that I didn’t realize I was missing in life…vulnerable community.

The vulnerable community I’m talking about is the kind where we are not only known for our strengths, but also our weaknesses. When you live day in and day out with that many people, it’s not very easy to hide the real you. People will know when you are frustrated, sad, depressed, or even having a tiff with your wife! However, growth happened when I didn’t try to hide these moments from everyone, but I allowed my true self to be known. It’s a chance to ask for help, to ask for forgiveness, and to work out differences through healthy dialogue. It was a chance to practice trying to understand others instead of only trying to be understood. It was a chance to grow in the depth of love I was able to give, but also able to receive. God used this season of communal living to open my heart to a level of transparency that I never thought I would be ok with. 

Unfortunately, most have not experienced this kind of community. And many now seek out “community” through platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. These tools should be used as an enhancement to community, but instead have become a replacement to it. They are places where we have the ability to showcase only our best to project an image of ourselves. It’s also a place where we can say whatever we want without repercussions. It’s much easier to unfriend or unfollow someone who thinks differently than we do rather than take into consideration that our words might have wounded. We have traded quality of relationships for quantity. In his book Making Room For Life, Randy Frazee calls this type of living “crowded loneliness.” 

“Simply put, many of us have squeezed living out of life. We don’t have the time to soak in life and deep friendships. We’re always running around trying to get to the next event. This presents at least two major problems. First, our busy lifestyles stimulate a toxic disease called crowded loneliness. But there’s an even deeper problem. In our original design we were created with a connection requirement. If this requirement is not met, we will die.”

God’s original design for man has always included the need for connection. Even at the onset of creation, God looked at man and said, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). God is a God of community and relationship. When we can experience the type of community where we are fully known and loved and offer the same to others, then we are living the way God designed us. This type of living becomes a reflection of God’s love for us. In an era of social media where it’s easy to know a lot about people and not know them at all, let’s choose vulnerability and depth. Let’s choose to be the church. After all, we were designed for so much more than to settle for crowded loneliness.

As we move into worship this weekend, we are going to reenforce our hearts with the Father’s love and purpose for our lives by singing This is the Day. We will then move into singing Ever Be to sing about God’s model for unfailing love. Finally, we will sing Your Love Never Fails to sing about how even if people fail us, we can lean back into the love of Christ Who never leaves us nor forsakes us.