The name Katrina is a bitter sweet memory for me and four others. When I hear of hurricane Katrina I automatically think about Owen, Josh, Chic, and Jackie.
About a month before the storm struck the Gulf States, Owen started coming to our student ministry. Owen was quiet, polite and often wore a yellowish orange Korn shirt and a spike earring. He was different than most of the students in our group, but he was exactly who our ministry was reaching. Josh was Owen’s small group leader. I would typically say it was by chance that they ended up together, but not this time.
It was early in the week when Katrina hit the Gulf Coast that Chic and Jackie, who lived in New Orleans, decided to visit some friends in Georgia since they were under evacuation orders. By Wednesday afternoon, Chic and Jackie’s short vacation turned into a two year journey. Their neighborhood had been totally submersed under water. It was in the midst of this difficulty that they had one desire: to find a church and worship God.
Meanwhile, our church had already prepared a relief team to bring water and supplies to the Mississippi region on the night Chic and Jackie came to our church. They found our church through a Celebrate Recovery Network. In the coming weeks we would take a total of four trips to the disaster area, each time bringing back stories of life change and how people were looking to God for help and strength in the midst of their troubles. As Chic and Jackie shared their stories with our congregation, our student ministry took the opportunity to use all that was taking place around our church body with relief trips and our new adopted family, to discuss difficulties and struggles in our small group communities.
At this time in our student ministry, Josh shared with his small group about the death of his dad. The night this discussion took place was one of the best discussions in our group. God was creating a common theme throughout our church from our large group worship services to our small group communities. Life was being shared through difficulties and it was only possible through the openness that the groups created. Students and leaders had an avenue to share life together for a few reasons:
Community breaks down walls. The average Sunday school class provides a lecture format with a listening audience while a small group format uses a facilitator who guides the discussion while encouraging everyone to share and get involved. The night Josh’s group spoke about his father’s death, Owen was able to hear from the group about their struggles, but he also shared from his life’s perspective in a safe environment.
Each person shared from a personal standpoint how God was helping them through these times. For the first time, Owen’s walls were beginning to shatter as he realized he was not alone in life’s difficulties. Had it not been for the safety provided in community, Owen may have never opened up about his struggles.
Community enhances vital relationships. It’s difficult for relationships to be built with others when we have walls up, and that’s how Owen lived his life for several years. As he allowed the walls to come down, other people were then able to play a vital role in his life. He was growing deeper in his relationships with his group leader and his peers.
Corporately, Chic and Jackie shared powerful stories of God working in their life through difficult times, but it was in community that Owen personally experienced and shared in those relationships with people who valued and cared genuinely for him. In Acts 2:42-47, it is clear that God works through relationships to bring about life change and help people through their difficulties.
Community moves people from being spectators to participators. A few weeks passed from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. I opened my Myspace inbox to find a message from Owen. He explained how at some point in his life he had basically given up on believing there was a God. Owen could not understand “Why a loving God would allow such horrible things to happen to his mom, or allow his five year old, innocent brother to face a deadly heart disease, and why He would allow all of the difficulties for the rest of his family?” For Owen there could not be a God, until now. He wrote, “After hearing the difficulties other people have gone through and experienced, I’ve realized that my reasons for not believing in God are childish and I want him to forgive me…if He will.”
Owen went from opening his message proclaiming not to be a Christian to closing with a desire to start a relationship with a God who three weeks prior did not even exist to him. It was through community that Owen was able to experience God through others in his group. They shared their life with him and he saw how they responded to God during their difficulties. It was because of community that Owen went from being an outside spectator of Christianity to a participator in the journey.
Owen stayed connected in our student ministry and became a participator in other areas as well. I learned through Owen, Chic, Jackie, and Josh how vital it is that we have a community to share life with through all of life’s difficulties.