Read Online Find Your People: Building Deep Community in a Lonely World by Jennie Allen - Free Book Online

I tend to think the same negative, toxic thoughts day after day. In fact, 80 percent of our thoughts, researchers tell us, are negative. Studies also reveal that 95 percent of our thoughts are repetitive. [7] The same is true about our relationships and our behaviors. When we think the same thoughts, we manifest the same behaviors, and those behaviors impact our relationships in similar ways.
    In the next section of this book, we’re going to fight back against the isolated pattern of our lives by installing five practices that, coupled with God in the center of those interactions, will build healthier, deeper relationships.
    When we moved to Dallas and started from scratch, I considered how I could re-create what I had seen around the world, how I could find my people and live in deeper, more regular, and life-giving community with them. I found five patterns that were consistent in villages and can be a part of our lives anywhere we live, from suburbs to Manhattan to apartments to small towns to college dorms.
    Here is what we are going to build into our lives if you come with me on this journey:
Proximity. Communal fires have been in the center of village life, bringing neighbors together to cook, to celebrate, to gather after dark and connect. Who do you see most often, and where?
Transparency. Most of the world has never lived with locked doors and fences. And while that might be a necessity in our homes, it isn’t a necessity in our relationships. Who can you most truly be yourself with?
Accountability to Others. In many villages this looks like tribal elders, people who have permission to wallop you over the head when you are being an idiot! Village life causes you to live accountable to others. It isn’t comfortable but it is transformative. Who are you living close to that has permission to wallop you when you need it?
A Shared Purpose. Living together and working together creates bonds and is how most peoplehave lived in community. Who is near you already, working beside you, and how could you bring more purpose to the friendships you already have?
Consistency. It takes time to build friendship and connection. We have to clock hours together over years. In Jesus’s time, each school was made up of a small group of boys. We are the most transient generation of all time. How do we stay and commit and spend regular time with people, even if they hurt us?
    In the chapters to come we will evaluate how these five simple practices could redefine the way we live in relationship to others. We’ll look at the history of what made these simple practices within village life so instrumental in developing a sense of belonging and nurturing deeply committed, lifelong relationships. What brought them together? What kept those relationships tight all the way until the Industrial Revolution? And what can we graft into our lives to create a village existence of our own?
    Let me be clear again: These practices are not the end goal. They are only tools to help you connect in deeper ways.
    My big dream is that the patterns we’ll be adopting will weave a culture of community into our daily lives, a way for us to put into practice this challenge from 1 John: “Let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.” [8]
    That way of life is possible—with God.
    So let’s imagine together what that might look like.
    What if we chose to do life in close proximity to each other?
    What if we lived less guarded and more openhearted with each other?
    What if we chose people in our lives who challenged us to be better each time we were together?
    What if we shared a deeper purpose in our relationships?
    What if we stayed instead of quitting each other when it gets difficult?
    We are going to talk about it all. But I also am going to ask you to take a risk with me. At the end of each chapter in part 2, I’ll give you an assignment. And if you take five weeks and engage with these five