Community and Sentness

After almost 2 months it is time to get back on the horse of blogging (I have a couple blogs that are partly written in drafts).

Last week, as I found myself in conversation with a friend and then later reading a book, I was reminded that I need people in my life. It wasn't simply that reality that I need others to survive (a created need for community) but I need others to thrive (to understand my place in this world...to be sent into the world. I need others to regularly reflect on my experience of God's world in order to engage God's world and others in more whole ways.

Trevor Hudson in his book A Mile in My Shoes relays a message that one of his mentors told him, "We do not learn from experience; we learn from reflection upon experience." I read this book last summer as Amy and I traveled to Londrina, Brazil with a group of Young Adults to visit a mission partner. It was a solid book and we had a little time to reflect on it together in Brazil but I realize that further reflection on this book and our experience would be helpful.

One of the spiritual disciplines I desire to engage in over the course of the next few months is writing/reflecting on being sent into the world that God has placed me in. This is one of five communal practices (rules of faith) that smallboatbigsea community in Australia practices. What I want to do over the next few weeks/months, is identify a handful of men to journey with me in this practice. I know I need others to not only ask me about my writing/reflecting but actually actively reflect with on a weekly basis. We need each other. How do you suppose we reflect on our experiences together?