4 Spaces to Belong

I've been reading a great book by Joe Meyers, called the Search to Belong. Joe turns traditional small group theory on its head with his insightful study and writing. I met Joe at Soularize a year and a half ago in Boston. We spent some time talking about small groups, house church and ways that people belong. I really didn't get was he was talking about until I read his book, however. ...as if I really get it now! Anyway, some things are making sense.

A quick synopsis of his ideas: people belong in four different spaces. These spaces are public, social, personal, and intimate. Churches tend to focus on one of these spaces or at most two but discount the others. We see the spaces as hierarchechal. Joe sees them as all valid in their own right. We don't need to graduate from one space into another in order to be healthy or to belong adequately. Belonging can happen in each space though they tend to flow freely in the course of relationship.

Joe also writes that we will have more public relationships than social, more social than personal, and fewer intimate still. In many churches we try to drive people to personal and intimate spaces that may be intimidating or altogether wrong for a person. We need to relax and allow people to belong in the spaces they choose to live in and be OK with that.

So now the work begins as I try to identify the various spaces that exist in our little church and how we can faciliatate better belonging in each space. I have a lot of unlearning to do!