Embracing Your Community

I bought a Mac earlier this year, and along with it I received a free subscription to Macworld.  I don't read it much, it's 90% advertisement for mac products (because everyone needs a pink carrying case for their new iphone) and 10% informational, but way too informational for a novice Mac user like myself.

Anyway, I started flipping through the pages to look at the pretty pages, which is pretty much how I read everything (yes, I do still use my childhood picture bible) when I actually ran into an interesting article.  It was in the very back, between advertisements for things called 8-core, quadxeon memory and mercury elite-al dual drive hubs, and I was just content to find an article that contained real words.

It was titled, Embracing Our Community and was written by Paul Kent.  After reading the article several times, I found myself very ashamed that this guy and the management team at Mac are better motivated and focused at creating a sense of community then every pastor I've ever met, including myself.

The article was describing how the Mac community has evolved from small user groups in the 80s, to a community today bonded together as strong as any family.  Okay, so maybe a little hyperbole was at work, but an still interesting an article.  According to Kent, here's how to do it:

1. Gather the Tribe

- Create opportunities for people from various backgrounds to network with 

each other through real-world interaction.

- Create a community with shared passion, commitment, and love

- Become a community of zealots, invested in the rise and fall of the 

organization

2. Expand the Tent

- Understand that new members to your community bring fresh perspective.

- New members drive the best thinkers, commentators, and leaders in the 

community to stay ahead of the curve.

- New members force you to find something for every segment of your 

potential community.

Too simple? Well the Mac community has used this simple formula to expand 

from a few users to a mainstream market in the millions. Maybe we should 

stop selling sermon series for bloated profits to bloated church members, stop 

spending money to make the building prettier while our neighborhoods are 

getting uglier, and stop talking about God like He's only concerned about gays 

and abortionist, and blind to hypocrites and phonies. Instead, what if we 

attempted to build and be an authentic community of people, recklessly 

pursuing the cause of Christ?

So I bless you to become an architect of a better way to live, a way that

embraces your community.