What It’s All About (not the hokey pokey)

My church has these things called tribes, which are incredibly awesome, but also difficult to describe. It’s hard to say what they are exactly, but I can tell you what they’re not: they’re not bible studies, they’re not small groups, they’re not mission groups, they’re not community groups, and they’re not house churches...at least not strictly. Rather tribes are a culmination of all of the above. In a tribe from time to time the bible is studied, the group is small, you live on mission, you become a community, and you meet in someone’s house. Confused? I was for probably the first few months of attending a tribe, but eventually it all comes back to being awesome. 

Anywho, to get more specific, my tribe meets on Wednesday nights and at this point in time all we do is eat good food and hang out. We’re a fairly new tribe, so we’re all still getting to know each other. Each week one or two people (out of a total of about eight of us) share their life story, more or less. It’s a great way to see where each person comes from and how they ended up where they are and who they are today. 

When you let people freely talk about themselves for 10 or 15 minutes you get to learn about accomplishments, challenges overcome, humorous stories, current struggles, and quirky hobbies. And once you learn these things you’re suddenly invited into those aspects of people’s lives. For instance, one of the girls in my tribe shared with us weeks ago that she goes to square dancing lessons. Just this last week she graduated from the lessons and was inducted into a square dancing club. She invited us all to go to the ceremony, I went, and it was a grand old time, as you can clearly tell from this photo evidence: 

If it weren’t for my tribe, I would never have gone to a square dancing graduation (let alone known they exist) and I most likely would never have befriended an official square dancing club member. And that’s what it’s all about, getting to know people from other circles of life, being there for them, and allowing them to be there for you as well. So contrary to popular belief, it’s not all about the hokey pokey.