Community

I have my small group meeting tonight. We'll gather at a house less than a mile from my house, enjoy an informal meal and dessert, share what is going on in our lives, and spend some time studying 1 Corinthians 15. I've grown to the point where I really enjoy having these meetings, although there are many Thursdays when I don't feel like doing it. Sometimes it feels like just one more thing to do when I could be studying, resting, playing, etc. I'm finally learning that God was serious when He established the local body of believers. Just about every week I leave with something of a rush from connecting with these guys.

What's really cool is when we see someone being changed by the Word. I'm a big one for talking about how the Word shapes us, but it's really powerful when we see it in action. We have a variety of crises going on in the group at any one time and it is wonderful to see men helping each other deal with life in a biblical way.

One of the problems of attending what I call a "Big Ten Church" is that it is easy to remain anonymous. You can slip in the back on Sunday and slip out again with only the greeters noticing your presence. This is not the ideal for a church, so we encourage the small groups. Fortunately, we also train the small group leaders and ask them to report on their groups after each meeting so that the leaders have some sense of what is going on.

I cannot recommend small groups highly enough. My life is just better because of my small group. Unfortunately, it looks like I'm going to have a conundrum this fall as I will have a class on Thursday nights.

iSolation

Last Friday we finished an office reorg. I now have a cube that is in direct sight of the main hallway, so I've started calling my cube "the fishbowl". I had to orient it in an unorthodox way so that my monitor could not be seen from the hall. Everything is much more open now and it feels like things are louder.

To counteract this and some of my coworker's more annoying mannerisms I've started bringing my new iPod shuffle to work. I sit and listen to John Williams and Piotr Tomasziewski tickle nylon strings. I may have to resort to the music I used in college when my bedroom was right next to the living room and I had to study while my roommates watched sports. Either way, I find that I like having the audio distraction of the music.

What's strange is that I'm starting to become what I've always disliked in some of my other music-listening coworkers. I found myself using our instant messaging system to try to reach a coworker in the next cube. I did this because I didn't want to go to the trouble of hitting the pause button on my iPod and taking the earbud headphones out. Now I'm using my old traditional headphones so I don't have the earbud excuse, but I find that I'm still loathe to stop in the middle of a piece if I don't have to.

I know many others have written about this, but I really am starting to see just how isolated technology makes us. I don't hear as much of what's going on around me, but that's OK. But now it's changing the way I connect with people. That's something I supposedly want to do so I can fulfill the Great Commission. And, as someone who wants to go into ministry, I should want to make those kinds of connections with people.

It gives me pause, even if my iPod doesn't.