Expectations In Community
Written by Austin Boyles, published September 2021.
Bio: Austin Boyles has been attending the Paradox Church since 2016 and a partner since 2017. He is a member of the Ridglea Hills City Group. Austin has served in various capacities in his time at TPC, including Setup/Teardown, Story Team, and leading a city group, though he now serves in City Renewal through The Net. He works for Simpli.fi as an Account Manager.
Expectations in Community
City groups are integral to what we do here at the Paradox Church. Our church leadership describes city groups as “where the work of the church is done on a daily and weekly basis.” We’re meant to be Families of Disciples on Mission. City Groups are the first thing we talk about when people want to learn more about TPC. Quite simply, they’re the vehicle our church uses to actually live out the Christian life.
When I walked in the doors of the first city group I ever attended, I was a wide-eyed college sophomore who had just met the Lord with no category or framework for what to expect. Attending a city group just seemed like the logical next thing step once I’d been going to the Paradox Church for a while.
What I actually experienced was a group of people who deeply loved and cared for one another, invited me in, and got to know me. To be honest, it was a bit disorienting—I’d never experienced anything like it before—but I knew I wanted to come back and be a part of something like that.
As I grew and joined the church, I soon found myself leading college city groups. Then, shortly after graduating, I began leading the group that I had just joined when the leader announced he was moving. As a result, I’ve actually spent far more time leading groups than just being a member !.
In every group I’ve led, I’ve always felt like something never quite worked like I hoped it would; I wanted to recapture the feeling I had in that first city group I attended my sophomore year. By no means were things terrible, and I truly enjoyed leading each group – we just never really felt like a “Family of Disciples on Mission.” Do you relate to that? Does your city group truly feel like a family?
In retrospect, it’s easy to see that a large portion of what I felt in my time leading was due to my shortcomings as a leader. However, I think there’s also something else that held us back: the expectations everyone had when they walked up each Wednesday night, myself included.
As a leader in the group, I had this idea that to be a leader was to be the guy in the room who was above the others, who had the right answers, who kind of “carried” the group. I felt it was my job to lead, and it was everyone else’s job to follow. Frustratingly, I would find myself in a pattern of periodically getting worn down and struggling to truly care for the members of my group.
My life, like everyone else’s, was busy. When things got difficult, I struggled to be the guy who had it all together; as it turns out, my idea of leadership really wasn’t biblical leadership. There was this huge gap between what was expected of me and the members of the group, and I thought that was how it was supposed to be.
Unlike the paradigm I was operating out of, biblical leaders are those who make themselves low in order to lift others up. The New Testament in particular is covered with paradoxical depictions of what it looks like to flourish: to serve others, to give your life away so that others may thrive. Jesus teaches us that our job is to follow his model and serve one another.
Our Lord, the God of the universe who holds all things together, “came not to be served but to serve” (Matthew 20:28) and tells his disciples later that if he, their “Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.” (John 13:14-15). Put another way by Jen Wilkin:
“Leadership is not about the strong looking for weaker people to lead. It’s about the humble looking for those whose strengths offset their weaknesses and complement their strengths. Strong leaders surround themselves with strong people, not with weak ones.”
Now on the other side of things, I’ve had many conversations with members of city groups who desire deeper community but don’t know what the path forward looks like. One specific misplaced expectation that continues to come up and yet wreaks havoc on biblical community is this: “I’m just not getting that much out of it.”
My friends, as gently as I can say, your city group is not there for you to get something out of it. That particular misconception leads to leaders feeling burnt out and exhausted.
The Paradoxical Paradigm of Selfless Community
So, what does it look like to enter into community with different expectations? How can we, both as CG leaders and members, shift our paradigm from one of expecting leaders to do everything, to one of communal growth worthy of our time? One of my favorite prayers of all time comes from a collection of old Puritan prayers called The Valley of Vision, and we’ll often say it corporately in a Congregational Prayer on Sundays. A portion of it says:
“Let me learn by paradox,
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.”
Let us learn by paradox, Paradox Church. You want to get something more out of your city group? Prayerfully enter into it each week considering what you can give. Ask your leaders how you can assist them in caring for the group, how you can take burdens off their shoulders. Be a leader without actually leading the city group—there are few things more valuable to your actual leaders. The way down is the way up, to be low is to be high, and to lead is to follow.