Week 1: Homework

Determine and declare what you will do as your spiritual workout for the duration of 201. This should include daily, weekly, and occasional spiritual practices. Write the workout down, share it in your coaching call and begin implementing it. We will call this your spiritual workout (SW).

Spiritual Workout Menu:
- Solitude + Daily reading in the morning
- Prayer before work (or equivalent time)
- Solitude refocusing during lunch
- Prayer, gratitude, confession at the end of work (or equivalent time)
- Fellowship at least once a week

Set aside one hour of solitude, review those entries, and describe, as clearly as you can,
an experience you had in which you felt hurt, embarrassed, rejected, ridiculed, or
condemned.

I remember sitting in the sanctuary of the youth building at my old church. I'd spent the morning serving with the children's ministry, politely socialized with some adults at "big church," had brunch and made it back to church again for youth group. I never really felt like I belonged there. I'd had a few sort of friends for a while. I always felt more like a hanger-on than a friend. I felt like I always had to be pleasing and on display, or I'd be left alone. My friends were older than I was, and once they graduated, I was alone again. I tried for a while, but I just couldn't seem to connect with anyone there. I got along with the youth minister and our speaker, but I always seemed to tell the wrong jokes, laugh at the wrong things, be interested in the wrong topics and be fascinated by the wrong parts of the Bible.

I spent so many Sunday nights, sitting alone, watching everyone else find the friend groups they'd been in forever. It was too late. They'd already made their friends. I could tell when they were just being nice to me because they were in church. It was fairly obvious. Instead, I tried to find others who were alone. A good thought, but not so great in execution. I'd end up with people I felt I couldn't leave because I didn't want my name added to the list of those who had abandoned them.

It was lonely. It was painful. It as repeated, outright rejection in the house of God. I listened to the sermon, buried myself in the word, and did my best to struggle through the time left for discipleship groups. Another, smaller setting in which the differences between myself and, seemingly, everyone else could be put into stark contrast. I'd been in small groups with these same girls since seventh grade, and even during my senior year of high school, I never spent any more time with them than was required for D-groups and other church events.

I learned that I would never be able to connect with my peers. I could carry on interesting conversations with adults on a variety of topics that interested me and I took great pleasure in letting it all go to bond, heart and soul, with the kids placed under my care. I was an old soul who was young at heart. It sounded pretty, but what it meant was crushing loneliness and disconnection from the people I would be around the most.

Vows created:

• I will not be vulnerable to people who don't care
• I will not seek/allow room for the love of others
• I will not be like my peers
• I will always be content with being alone

I think I'll start with this. I probably will need to beef it up, but I'll start by regulating what I sorta kinda do now.

Write a one-page journal entry as a response to this question: What is your first, instinctive response to the idea of launching or joining a missional community?

My first response is a mixture of great joy and terror. The thought of being in a community of individuals focused on creating change in the community for the glory of God sounds like a dream come true. I have been opening myself to the possibility of other life paths beyond the one I'd planned for myself, and service to the community has been a constantly recurring theme. 

Not only that, but it would sate my craving for fellowship. The thought of simply interacting with people with the goal of relationship makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable. It's like another business networking event for my life. I never get authentic relationships from such events. I put on my extrovert skin, smile, laugh, crack jokes, entertain and seek to impress. I use up all my energy trying to be acceptable, then leave drained and still disconnected. Having a shared goal and purpose not only makes it more likely that I will meet people of like heart, but it gives us something to focus on beyond ourselves and how great we have to pretend to be. 

Bonding over work, struggle, success and failure is much more doable than being expected to conjure a relationship out of thin air. I find I am the most connected with people (with few exceptions) when I am participating in or leading a group that has a shared vision. I am better able to celebrate others' strengths and encourage them as they work to improve their weaknesses. I have a goal upon which I can focus my energy so I don't have to approach others at full force.

I also find myself to be most joyful and content in the midst of service. Using what skills and talents I have been blessed with to serve those in need. When it's not about me or you, but about showing God's love for another, I am at my best. I noticed this during the mission trips my old church would go on. Summer in Mexico is unnecessarily hot, but knowing that I was acting as an example of Christian living and loving while also improving the lives of the children at the orphanage made every second of dehydration worth it.  I could put up with half-hearted praise, cliques, isolation and pretense because I knew that what I was doing was bigger than that.

Now for the bit about terror. It's not so convoluted. Fellowships is not my strong suit. To say it is a struggle is an understatement. Meeting new people and, most often, even keeping in touch with current friends takes a tremendous amount of energy for me. I have to claw through fear, anxiety, insecurity and fatigue just to give my best friend a call. MY BEST FRIEND. I avoid answering the phone simply because answering seems like one of Hercules' tasks. So, intentionally throwing myself into a group of new people is, by comparison, equivalent to trying to balance the world on my back. (My back gets sore loading the dishwasher. I know for a fact that I cannot handle the world.)