The Line of Trust (pt. 1)

I’ve been chewing on this concept of the “line of trust” for a couple of weeks and forgive me if it is not original, but i can’t remember ever reading about it so we’ll say it’s something that’s at least rolling around in that head of mine.    All relationships operate on trust or the lack of trust.

At the end of the day trust dictates everything relationally, both with the Lord and with humans.  I’ll continue to use an example that I have used before with the Lord.  If you trust that God knows what you need, and he loves you then it will directly affect you worrying about food, shelter, and clothing (Matt. 6; and one of my big personal applications in 2009).  Humanly, if someone lies, cheats, steals from you and they are your friend it affects the core issue of trust. If your group has someone who won’t work through money issues in your group (like Moneywise), they don’t trust that you can handle their finances…It’s too exposing.  On the other end, when someone loves you enough to tell you something you don’t want to hear for your own good, and you trust them…that’s relationship (Pr. 27:6)

So, here’s the line of trust as it’s relationship to community.  The total length of time that a community group is together is like a football field.  Yes, think football field.  Lines running horizontally every 5 yards for 100 yards. Think about the faces of everyone in your community group.  They all have stories, pasts, and all have had trust broken in the past on some level.

There’s a huge spectrum right?  Some people are so scarred by their past that if you told them the sky was blue they wouldn’t believe you, others are on the other end of the spectrum.  At the endzone on the far end of the football field is the “line of trust”.  Imagine the people in your group being scattered all over the field, and the goal of the leader is to move them towards that goal line relationally.  If we jump off of the playing field because it’s too hard or it’s “not a good fit” then we lose in the long run, because we will still need to learn to trust people relationally where we can be transparent, authentic, and truly be known.

At the end of the day, the goal of the community group leader (shepherd) is to keep all players on the field  moving towards the line of trust, where true community happens.

The field involves blood, sweat, tears, and nights laying in bed thinking of resolving conflict with someone, yes countless nights.  If you are involved in a group, you know that it’s extremely difficult the longer period of time you move forward. Why? Imagine someone who is back on the 5 yardline (we’ll call him Rob) and someone else is on the other 5 yard line  about to reach the line of trust with others (we’ll call him Dan).  How can that group function and be healthy….Stay on the field and hopefully over time Rob will move to the 10 or 15 yardline.  Or to stick with the illustration, Rob could move all the way to the line of trust in a short period of time. We just don’t know how long it will take for others to trust.  You don’t know if it will be a fast growing tree or an oak that takes decades to grow.

Here’s what I do know, relational growth takes a long time and if patience is a virtue and  a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5) then it is celebrated in the world of community.  My desire for  you is that you would exercise extreme patience as you keep your community players on the field moving towards the line of trust. Thoughts?