Part 8: Free to Flourish

THE AIR WE BREATHE Part 8 of 8: Free to Flourish

Thanks for tracking with me if you’ve followed through this series. I hope you’ve picked up that I’ve written as a hopeful participant within the unfolding story of Christ and the communities of people that make up his church. I'm not an expert on organisational culture. I don't have a programme to offer or a set of principles that, if implemented correctly, will produce some espoused outcome.

I've simply had a glimpse of something. In scripture, in the lives of people I know, in odd unexpected moments inside communities that have been deeply imperfect but where something real and lovely broke through anyway. A quality of life together that I've tasted enough of to know it exists, and to know it's what we were made for. And I've been nudged by the Spirit enough times, in enough different ways, to believe that what I've glimpsed isn't just a nice idea. It's a genuine possibility, even for communities that might seem far from it right now.

That's all I'm bringing here. A glimpse, and a stubborn refusal to stop hoping, believing and participating as best I can.

Most of us have been somewhere, at some point, where the air was different, clear. Maybe it was a small group that somehow managed to be genuinely real with each other. Maybe it was a season in a community before things got complicated, when the love was authentic and the belonging felt safe. Maybe it was a single conversation with someone whose own security was so settled that you found yourself saying things you didn't know you were going to say, and feeling safer, and more known, rather than more exposed afterward.

I've been in those places. Not often enough, and not permanently. But enough to know the difference. Enough to know that what I experienced wasn't an accident or a lucky combination of personalities, but something more like a glimpse of what community is designed to be, a promise.

In those places, I remember people just being more themselves. The careful, managed version most of us present in lots of settings had relaxed. There was more laughter, more genuine thought, gnarly conversations, and more creative risk. Disagreement didn't feel like a threat. Saying I was wrong didn't feel like failure.

The thing that keeps stirring faith in me, more than any research or theory, is what scripture consistently shows about the character of the communities God is building. The early chapters of Acts describe something that stopped people in their tracks, because of a quality of life together the surrounding world couldn't quite explain.

Paul's image of the body in 1 Corinthians keeps coming back to me: a body where every part is genuinely needed, where if one part suffers the whole body feels it. And Ezekiel 34, where God's response to bad shepherding isn't to abolish shepherding, but to describe, in extraordinary detail, what good shepherding looks like. The scattered will be gathered. The lost will be sought. The injured will be bound up. The sick will be strengthened.

That vision isn't addressed to a perfect community. It's addressed to one that has made a serious mess of things. And the very fact that God bothers to describe the alternative in such loving detail suggests he hasn't written the community off. He's describing what he's still aiming for, and that does something tangible to my faith.

The most important changes tend to start smaller and more quietly than we might expect. They start with one person deciding to say the true thing rather than the safe thing, gently and from love rather than from grievance. One leader pausing to genuinely ask rather than to carefully manage. One community member choosing to stay curious about the person who made them uncomfortable, rather than joining the unspoken consensus forming around them. These are small acts. They don't always produce visible results. But they can shift something in the atmosphere. And air, it turns out, can change.

If you've read this carrying pain from something that happened in a community you trusted: your experience was real. The self-doubt that the process produced in you was the process working as it was always going to work, it’s not evidence that your perceptions were wrong. The concerns you raised mattered. They still matter. And you haven't been disqualified from community because of what you've been through. If anything, the understanding and compassion you likely carry now, only comes from having been there and having come out the other side, integrity intact.

If you've read this as a leader who has recognised something of yourself in these pages, the same grace applies. The fearful patterns you might be more aware of aren't the whole of who you are. They're what fear can do to someone who began with genuine love and genuine call. That love and that call are still there. The same God who met Elijah in his desolation, who waited patiently for David's genuine acknowledgement, who kept speaking to Jeremiah through every bout of despair, is not finished with you.

And if you've read this as someone who simply loves the church and grieves the gap between what it is and what it could be, welcome to a very large and very honourable company. That grief is the appropriate response to something that deserves to be taken seriously. Our grief over the gap and our celebration of all that’s good can co-exist inside. And, both the grief gap and the hearty celebration are ways the Spirit keeps communities hopefully oriented toward the unfolding of his glorious plans.

I want to end simply not with a summary, because if you’ve stuck with this series, you've already read a lot. I just want to encourage you, from one person who has been in this story, to whoever you are and wherever you've come to this from.

I believe the air can change. Not because we have a clever method for changing it, but because I've breathed different air enough times to know how it feels.

I believe the cold room described at the start of this series is not the only kind of room there is, I’ve been in a room where the air is warm and welcoming.

I believe the longing in our hearts isn’t a design flaw, but the image of God in us, oriented toward the love we were made for. I’ve experienced communities that seem to understand this enough to gently respect each other's longing, and resist using it as leverage, and that feels safe and good.

I believe the scapegoat mechanism can be interrupted. Maybe not easily. But communities can come to themselves, the way the younger son did, and begin the journey home.

I believe silenced voices are not lost. What they were carrying when they left didn't leave with them in the sense of being resolved. It's still there, still true, still available to be received if the community finds the courage to be curious.

I believe the fearful leader is reachable. I have to believe that, because I've been one.

I believe the Spirit of God is inviting us toward something good and true in our communities. And if we can be open to recognise the challenging feedback that is heaven’s gracious invitation, we might even find it leads us towards exactly what we’re deeply longing for.

The Nathan story that's been a thread through all of this doesn't end with the confrontation. It ends with David saying I have sinned, and Nathan saying the Lord has taken away your sin. And get this, the relationship holds. The truth was spoken, and received, and something was repaired that had been broken.

That outcome wasn't guaranteed. Nathan took a risk. David could have responded very differently. He had to face who he was at his worst. The story could have ended very badly. But it didn't and that’s what gives me hope.

God regularly realigns his Body. He does it lovingly, patiently, persistently, hopefully. And I think we have an opportunity for realignment now. The great news is that God isn’t not finished with us yet. Yes, we may need to face some stuff like David did, but if we will, I’m absolutely convinced, the best is yet to come.