Check out our newest April issue of Testament as Michelle shares her thoughts on community and her experience settling into a new spiritual home at VCBC.

Experiencing Community: Homes, Old and New
Jackey Lip

Welcome to the April issue of Testament! This month, we’re experimenting yet again with the format a little bit. Instead of a podcast, here’s a written interpretation of a very informal interview I had with my own wife Michelle about her journey experiencing the community of Christ in her past and present. As she told her story to me, I now tell it to you, sprinkled with my own thoughts, and through the delightful interplay between storyteller, writer, and reader, I hope you may find genuine enrichment, encouragement, and insight into your own life and how it is interwoven with the lives of others.

J: What does community mean to you? How do you know when you really feel like you’re in a community?

M: I think the number one thing for me is, community is a place where you can truly be yourself. I grew up always conscious of what other people thought of me, what I looked like, how I talked, how I acted. And I felt a lot of pressure to meet their expectations or to act in a certain way. But as I matured, and I think as we all matured back at Surrey Chinese Baptist Church, we gradually turned into a genuine community where people felt welcomed and a sense of belonging. We were able to come together just as we were with all our different quirks and faults. I could start to show my weird side because I felt comfortable and secure in the fact that God loved me and my brothers and sisters in Christ loved me too. So yeah, community is where you can be yourself.

I thought back to the 15+ years I had spent at SCBC, and for her, it was pretty much since birth that she’d been there, and in that moment I knew what she was talking about, and one word came to mind: home. Community is where you’re home. You belong there, and you’re known there.

J: So how has being in community with others helped you in your personal faith journey?

M: Well, besides the usual answer of having people to keep you accountable, and mutual encouragement and all that, for me it was the privilege of being alongside people who I admired and was inspired by. When I was younger, I really looked up to this older sister figure at SCBC who I thought was just the coolest person. She was really good at piano, singing, and these were the things I admired at first, and I wanted to be like her. But as I got older, I noticed the far more valuable traits she had: she was always just so intentional and present with people. Whenever you talked to her or you saw her talking with other people, you could tell she was really listening and really caring. And I realized here was a person who really embodied the love of Jesus, and it was a great privilege to serve alongside this person who pointed me forward and urged me forward in Jesus’s way. And yeah, also just serving with others, you get to see how everyone shines differently, and if you’re paying attention, you see how God gives such unique gifts to everyone, and if we’re all tapping into that, it’s just endlessly inspiring.

In her answer, I was reminded of one of Michelle’s best qualities: her humility and her capacity to see the best in others. As she was gushing about the people she admired, I was silently listing all the people I knew who would say the same things about her, and it made me laugh a bit that she was completely oblivious to it in the moment. Her answer also reminded me of one of the powerful privileges of being in a community of Christ: through our own lives, we have the daily choice to show Jesus to one another.

J: Finally, what’s it like to say goodbye to a community you’ve called home for so long and to say hello to a new community that you’re hoping to call home?

M: Ha ha, this is the awkward question. Obviously it was tough to leave SCBC even though we felt freedom and joy to join VCBC, and everyone’s been so friendly and welcoming so far. I realized for myself, that in a way, it was kind of going through a grieving process. Just the thought of all these relationships I’ve had over time at SCBC, that they won’t be the same, or there may be people that we won’t be seeing as often, or even not at all anymore, there’s definitely a sense of loss. And sadness. But that kind of tells you how much they mean to you, and that doesn’t go away. And I think when it comes to calling a new place home, like VCBC, it will just take time. It’s like being invited to stay at someone’s house. It doesn’t matter how nice and kind and loving the people are, or how fancy the house is, there will just be a certain amount of time when I feel like I’m still in the guestroom. It’s kind of like living in the now and not yet. But I really am looking forward to eventually feeling like a family member taking her seat by the fireplace along with everyone else.

I loved her answer. It was honest, it was real, but it also had hope, and it was yet again a profound reminder of how we need to trust in Jesus as we live in the tension of the now and not yet. Even in community with one another, through Jesus, we are now brothers and sisters, a family, but there’s growing pains and learning curves when it comes to really feeling like family or behaving like family. We’re not going to get it right all the time. But looking even further ahead to that final Day, we can be comforted by the fact that, in the new heaven and the new earth, all the communities of Christ we considered home in this life, old and new – all of them will have their place in the home of homes, where the Triune God and all of His people will gather around the same hearth and be glad in each other’s company, forever and ever.

[Endnote]: If you’ve come this far and are still reading, good on you! Thanks for bearing with us as we continue to explore the limits of what Testament can be in both content and expression. I hope this month’s format was refreshing and sparked your own creativity in the way you dialogue with others and process your interactions. I would have loved to do a podcast with Michelle because she’s actually the funniest person I know and her weird side is my favourite thing about her, but she’s firmly expressed that she is merely an avid listener of podcasts and not so much an enthusiastic participant. Either way, I hope you enjoyed this little experiment, and stay tuned for the next issue in May! Peace.