the making of community

Kyle Sears is planting a new church in Hutto, Tx called Resonate. While I really dig the name (it's just too cool), I found a thought proving post on thier blog from back in June. I have provided the whole post, but would love to hear what you think about community.

June 21st, 2006

The Making of Community

Posted by Kyle Sears in Love

How do you go about creating community? Just because you live in a community doesn’t necessarily mean you live in community. I’ve found that one of the greatest needs of my generation is the need for community. We grew up in disconnected homes, and that lack of being connected has made us value a rich, community-driven lifestyle. Sites like Digg and MySpace are all about groups of people interacting together. Massively-multiplayer online games (MMOs) like World of Warcraft seek to establish a connection.

But very few of us actually have a true sense of community, of reliance and appreciation for each other in a tangible sort of way. Most of the time, we encounter communities where we don’t belong, or where cliques squelch any individuality that we have.
Unfortunately, this happens at church, too. Many churches are glorified high school cafeterias, where “outsiders” aren’t truly welcomed (at least not before they join). We say we’re a community of believers, but often that means we’re a community of people gathered around an event or a program. Jesus made it clear that true community forms around a cause (Matthew 4:19).

At Resonate Community, we want to show people how to live inside-out, or lives of authentic transformation (I’ll post more on what this means later). This lifestyle is available to anyone and everyone, even if you’ve never been to church before. I think that, as we help others find this kind of life, they’ll want to join us in our cause. And as we bond together, community forms. Suddenly, it’s not about what we wear or what kind of car we drive or how busy we are, but it’s about helping others find the heartbeat of God. As Resonate Community gets started, we want that passion to sustain us. Not everyone is going to “get it.” Some people will always think that church means wasting your time for an hour or two on Sunday morning. We think there’s more to it than that. Church can be a place where people find who they really are, and are happy with what they see.