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I just finished reading Joe Myers' book, The Search to Belong. Below I offer some of Myers' insights interspersed with my own thoughts in brackets. Here is what Myers says about community and belonging:

[BTW: "Public" belonging is the brief connections we make with people in our day-to-day affairs: eye contact with a passerby; learning the coffee barrista's name at your local Starbucks; etc. "Social" belonging entails the regular connections we make with co-workers, church members, et al. This is a type of connectedness you might have with a friend at school that you socialized with only at school. "Personal" belonging relates to one's actual friends. Those people whom you share inside-jokes with; you know their lives and they know yours. "Intimate" belonging is that interconnectivity that a husband and wife share, or maybe even the intimacy shared between two best-friends.]

--Belonging is multidimensional. We relate to people in different ways according to the space we encounter others (public, social, personal intimate).
Therefore, we need to divorce ourselves from the myth that if one doesn't belong on every dimension, then she does not truly belong.

--Many times the church does not nurture individuals' life-search for authentic community and solidarity; rather, we simply give them something else to do, or some other place where they have to be.
Belonging is both a matter of perspective and degree. People whom I might not consider a "close friend" may consider me one. A man I might consider a nominal church-goer might see himself as an active member. [We need to maintain a sense of what Rebecca Chopp calls a "perfectly open sign" towards the Other. Rather than being exclusive and bickering about who is in or out, who belongs or doesn't belong, why not, for our part, be radically open to the Other, for the Other's sake and for our own.]

--Too often we make the mistake that people need to progress in their mode of belonging. So if someone belongs publicly, we want to press them to belong personally or intimately. This is a mistake.
We need to allow people the space to belong in any way they chose. Myers writes, "True community can be experienced in public space. Public space is not mere togetherness; it is connectedness. It is family."

--Myers notes, "All belonging is significant. Healthy community--the goal humankind has sought since the beginning--is achieved when we hold harmonious connections in all four spaces. Harmony means more public belonging than social. More social than personal. And very few intimate."

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in relationships in general and discerning how we relate to one another in the church in particular. Too often the church provides space for public belonging (alla corporate worship) and intimate belonging (typified by the small-group craze). We need to provide opportunities for people to belong in each area of connectivity. How are we going to do it? Peace.

If you have kept up with the comments offered on this blog, you are well aware that the most virulent debates have centered on the Emergent conversation. I fully understand why many of my conservative evangelical brothers and sisters are worried by the prospects of Emergent and I have tried to respond to questions and critiques graciously--although admittedly I have failed at times. Several of the leaders of the Emergent conversation have put together a formal response to their many critics. Hopefully this response will mollify those of you who have expressed serious reservations about the theology/epistemology typified by many of us involved with this fruitful discussion.

response2critics-1.pdf

The Search to Belong

Costa Rica

Emergent Leaders respond to Critics