Control in community is very costly
There was a point in our home church when I realized the remaining ounces of control I held in the group were actually costing us something. From my perspective now, I might say it was costing us God in everyone else.
Most people are considerate, not forceful, and allow time and space to feel things out. Our group was definitely like that. But maybe, also because they’re like that, they respected that Sarah and I had started the group and didn’t speak so much into areas that they perceived I held onto.
In looking back now I understand that in order to have a space where every person could fully be themselves, I needed to let go. I needed to, for myself, and maybe for some in the group, actually trust that Jesus speaks to and through his people, and that he’s a good-enough leader that he doesn’t need intermediaries with his kids. That’s why he gave us Holy Spirit—to remove the middle man, connecting us directly.
Letting go meant God could speak in whatever way he wanted through any of us. I would actually say this before, but I didn’t realize the ways I wasn’t living it out.
I cannot begin to describe the ways I have discovered and encountered God in his people since then. We, as a family, are being formed by the strengths and stories of God in his kids around us. And it is forming the character of Jesus in me better than all my years of study.