Friends vs Community

We all like having friends and we have a pretty good idea of what a friend is, but I don’t think we really understand what a community is. For the longest time I just thought it meant a group of friends who understand me, and I can talk to about anything. But the more and more I worked with this definition the more unsatisfied I was with it.

I didn’t understand what community was until I spent six wonderful weeks at Catholic Youth Summer Camp. There I was surrounded by 40 plus people on staff who were all intentionally striving to Christ like me. And I wasn’t overtly close with very many of them, but I knew I could talk to any of them about my life and struggles. They were always there to offer support, advice, and insight into what God might be doing in my life.

This was fantastic and I knew leaving camp was going to be hard, but I never understood why. How could a group of people some of which I didn’t know more than their name be so important to me and be so hard to leave? It wasn’t until a great conversation with one of my camp friends that she said, “Friends and community are not the same thing”. I didn’t realize how right she was until that moment.

I have great friends, but I never had that solid foundation like I did at camp. I finally realized why leaving camp was so hard because we all need community. It is essential to get to heaven, and our souls long for heaven. Community is that group of people who want to get to heaven and push you to do the same. They aren’t afraid to call you to something higher or help you discern. They are those people that God has placed in your life to help you become the person you are called to be.

Never discredit others, we can’t walk this road alone because we were never meant for that. We are the body of Christ meant to be in harmony with ourselves, others, and our Heavenly Father. Community is important because we don’t know everything and God puts people into our lives to show us what He is trying to say. We are always learning, and there is no better teacher than those we love.