What Is Community (and why we need to have a conversation about it) – Part 1b

Wow, I really started a conversation with my last post about community, didn’t I?  Thanks to everyone who stepped up to the plate and commented.  I appreciate it.

I have a confession: I’m actually really bad at starting conversations. I’m much better at jumping into existing conversations and taking them in new directions. That I can do. But starting them is hard for me.  People might ignore me, or think I'm weird or boring.  Sometimes it just seems easier not to try.

I think community is like that, too. It’s a frightening thing to try and create some sort of social unit, by yourself, from scratch. What if no one is interested? Worse, what if everyone thinks you’re weird for trying?

I realized from a lot of the comments on my last post that a lot of people wanted a looser definition of community than the one I offered. And I think that’s fair. There is a more informal, ad-hoc kind of community that many people would like to have with their neighbors, their coworkers, the people at their church, their friends.

It’s not exactly the same kind of intentional, interdependent community that I have participated in. But it can lead to it. It’s a lot like starting a conversation. It’s the scary but necessary first step.

I'm going to call it ‘invitational community’: one person, or a few people, who are intentionally seeking opportunities for community. It’s one-sided in the sense that only the initiating party may be interested in community. The classic example which came up in the comments is getting to know your neighbors.

How do you get to know your neighbors? For some reason this seems difficult for a lot of us. I have had the ‘privilege’ of living in several apartment complexes over the years and discovered that despite the paper-thin walls and the scarce parking I almost never knew who my neighbors were.  If I did have interactions with them, they were almost always negative ones which involved calling the cops or passive aggressive letters slipped under the door. Why is this? Has modern society really conditioned me to be neurotically anti-social, petrified of humans outside of my peer group?

I don't think we have to be quite so hard on modern society (or me for that matter!).  The answer is more straightforward: there’s simply no organic way for me to interact routinely with my neighbors in an apartment complex. Even if I absolutely determine that I'm going to knock on doors and say ‘hi’ to people, this is likely to result in one or two awkward and strained conversations before lapsing into the occasional wave across the parking lot.

This is an important point about creating community: good intentions won’t get you very far.

After moving to my current neighborhood just three months ago I know my neighbors on both sides of my house and I didn’t even have to try very hard. The reason is simple: my house has a porch. In fact most of the houses around here have porches. And on a warm spring afternoon the thing to do between 6 and 8 PM is to sit out on your porch and enjoy the weather. So you’re out on your porch, your neighbor is out on theirs enjoying a beer, and you get to talking.

I’m lucky enough to live in a place that has space for organic interactions with my neighbors. If you’re not, you are going to have to create these opportunities yourself. And you might have to get a little creative. You might want to try getting a dog and walking it. Or… a cat.

Michelle has a cat, which she takes for walks.  I dearly would love to see video footage of this process, but regardless, I think this is an absolutely brilliant approach to 'invitational community', aka getting to know your neighbors. It’s a surefire conversation starter. We can easily imagine a wide range of responses that Michelle might get when she leashes up Princess and takes her for a stroll:

"Is that a…. cat?"

"Wow, does it like being walked?"

"Did you train it?"

"You’re the girl who walks her cat! My husband has told me about you! So nice to meet you!"

If Michelle is persistent and lucky, she might find someone like that last person who is also interested in 'having a conversation'. Her invitation is accepted, the conversation is started. And suddenly her ‘invitational community’ becomes… something else.

But what exactly? Where do Michelle and her neighbor take it from here? They might choose, as most people do, to keep each other at a comfortable arm’s length. Or they might take the more daring step of opening their lives up to each other.

There’s a deeper level of community beyond invitational community. It starts with that, but it doesn’t have to end with that. It can end with a group of people who know each other very well, who are involved in each others lives, who care for each other and who help each other in need.

The kind of community I was talking about in my first post is exactly this kind of community. It’s a group of people who have committed to intentionally creating something together: interacting on a regular basis, sharing things, becoming more dependent on each other. Maybe even living together.

As crazy and radical and frightening as this sounds, I really do believe that this is something that a lot of people need, even if they don’t know they need it. Why else do we want to get to know our neighbors better? Is it just so that we can have them over for dinner every couple of months?

Or is it because we want to belong, want to have people who know us and care about us and are involved in our lives?

What's your reason for wanting to get to know your neighbors?  Once you've started a conversation, what's the next step?