Community Group

One of the things I appreciate most about Denver has been my involvement in my community group through City Pres Church this year. Our community group is 12-14 individuals who meet together weekly for Bible study and prayer, and once a month just get together for a "social" to eat and chat and hang out, getting to know one another better. The neat thing is that our groups are not formed based on age, demographic, or common interest, but rather on neighborhood. This is a loose association, since when people move they often stay in the same group (once you've gotten to know people for a year or two, you don't want to leave them!) but basically it is people who all live near each other. My group, for example, has a 23-year-old recently married couple, a couple with 2 kids, and a single guy in his upper 50's (or so... i've never asked). And all sorts in between, both single and married. This, I feel, gives me a sense of true community. I'm not just talking to these people because we are at the same place in life or because we have so much in common, but because we are brothers and sisters in Christ we work together, from our different backgrounds, Biblical knowledge levels, and current life situations to learn and grow together. We pray and we care for each other, and it ends up being not because we have to, but because we want to.

A few weeks ago my friend Katie Sytsema visited on one of our social nights. I had described the variety of the group to her, and she went expecting a bit of awkwardness, since we didn't come together because of commonalities we have. Her overwhelming impression was one of love and acceptance. Though we are not the same, we realize we all come together in the end for the same goal: to be in community with fellow Christians in a city where those can be hard to find sometimes :) No matter where life brings me, I will always have fond memories in my heart of the people I have gotten to know this past year in community group.