4: Your Tribe

I understand in our life finding a community can be one of the hardest things. What I have begun to realize is that it’s not just one group of people that struggles more than another. Young adults might have jammed packed schedules that make it hard to find time to meet with others, while a more established adult with a spouse and children might find it hard to connect with like minded people. Something that is vital for all groups to establish is their tribe. 

When I am talking about your tribe I am talking about a smaller group of people within the larger community that you’ve established. Some people call it a small group or even an accountability group, but your tribe will be an important part of your life and will help establish your larger trusted community. 

My tribe consists of two couples really, even though our community is much larger, these two families help keep us grounded. In our experience being able to pull away from the larger group to be more personable and honest with each other has helped Rachelle and I become better parents and a better spouse to one another. 

I think back to just a few weeks ago before I started writing this. I was having one of the worst weeks of my life, it seemed like everything was against me and every situation was world ending. 

I was able to call Jerimee and Joel, I sat down with each of them individually and was able to decompress and talk out how I was feeling. What was great about meeting with each of them was I was able to process the situation in between each of the conversations. 

Joel and I went out to a late dinner, we picked up spicy chicken taco rolls and talked for a few hours. Even though the initial conversation started with my junk, we moved into other areas of life and success. I was able to celebrate with Joel the new found passion for exercising he has and hear about how much better his life has become as a result. 

My conversation a few days later with Jerimee was similar as I was still stressed and frustrated with what had gone on in the last few weeks. I was able to talk with Jerimee with a clearer head, explaining some of the deeper reasons that I was so frustrated. I believe the only reason that I was able to do that was because of my initial conversation with Joel and how he helped me see the situation from a different point of view. 

My tribe is so important to me. I know that I would not be in the stable life situation I am currently in without them. Though not everything in my life is perfect, being able to rely on the small group within my community is life changing. 

Not only do we get to share our burdens with one another, but we get to celebrate our success and life events. Just a few weeks ago we were able to attend Jessica’s birthday dinner, and we celebrated it like we were a part of the family. 

We brought baby Carson along, and without hesitation he was passed around the table with love, each person pouring into his life, all while we were able to celebrate Jessica’s life! Our tribe is so important to Rachelle and I. 

One of the great things about our tribe is the ability to grow our community. Because of Jessica and Jerimee and Joel and Robin, we have met so many other couples that are now great friends of ours. 

Without our tribe there would have been so many backyard cookouts, after church lunches, weekend events, and 4th of July parties that we would have missed out on. And in the near future as Carson begins to grow and learn to play with others we will have so many young children whose families we are already connected with to have play dates with. 

So how do you find your tribe? I mean, it is easier said than done, that is for sure, but it is not impossible. It will take you getting out of your comfort zone, it might take moments of you being vulnerable or even being hurt. Do not be discouraged though, because that is only part of the process. I would be lying to you if I said that four years ago when I first moved to Phoenix that I found my tribe, it was actually very recent. 

I moved to Phoenix in 2016 and met Jerimee and Joel and I knew that both of them were excited to have me at their church and that they did care about me. Joel and I connected quickly but only because we met together to be a part of youth ministry on Wednesdays, it took about a year for us to really start diving deeper into community together. And though I knew Jerimee and Jessica, it wasn’t until after I married Rachelle that we really started to grow closer to them by joining their small group.

But even after those two milestone moments it wasn’t until late 2018 that we really became the tribe. There was nothing wrong with the relationships that we shared together before then, but we really dove deeper into each other's lives towards the end of that year, we really begun to invest into one another on a deeper level talking outside of our typical days that we would see each other. 

It didn’t just happen naturally, each of us inside of my tribe had to step up, we each had to invest into one another. There was a catalyst though, honestly, I wasn’t even the person to start it all. It was Jerimee, he was the one who took the time out of his day to connect us on a deeper level, Jerimee went out of his way to bring us closer together. 

Jermiee decided that it wasn’t enough for us to just see one another at church, or every other week at our small group. He wasn’t satisfied with the texts here and there, he wanted more and because he did Jerimee took the steps needed to create a closer bond. I received a request on my YouVersion Bible App, he had friended me and instead of just leaving it at a simple friend request where he could see how many verses I was highlighting each week, Jerimee invited Joel and I into a study together “Live Free - Brotherhood is a Necessity”. Over the next seven days we dove deeper into scripture, commented our thoughts on the reading and were able to be vulnerable with what we struggled with.

The only reason this began was not because I as the pastor decided to start a group, or tell someone to read through scripture, but because Jerimee wanted more and was not satisfied with the status quo of our current relationship. To establish a tribe within your community, someone needs to take the initiative, someone needs to care more than everyone else to work on connecting the group. It sounds hard, and the reality of the situation is that it is incredibly hard. Because it is not initially rewarding, this task might take weeks or even months because you cannot control how others decide to invest their time or live their lives. 

We might know that the best thing for everyone would be to invest into each other, but until the people that you want to be a part of your tribe see past themselves and actually start to care about others in the tribe, that will not happen. Now it is hard, because I believe that most people think that they are good enough, that they have invested what they needed too, that they are fine in the situation they are in. 

But we cannot remain in that, we must push for change and growth and not merely for ourselves or our family, but for those we love and care for. Because if you want to see a true community come together and if you desire to have this tribe that I am speaking about you and I must do more, we must change our thought process and begin to see ourselves differently because we are not the most important people in the room.

Most people in our world are not bad or evil, most people actually do care about others. The reality of humanity is that we are inherently selfish, we are always looking out for number one and what is most important to us. Ourselves, our spouse, and our children. It is hard to break out of this mindset and it is hard to shift our focus. We will dive deeper into this idea in Chapter seven. 

3: To Be Done Alone

Now I know that you might be thinking, Trevor if you are so about community are you against being alone? The answer to that question is no. Matter of fact, I actually enjoy being alone. Every personality test that I have ever taken through high school, college, and into my adult life has split me right down the middle between an introvert and extrovert. I have found that I am able to turn on my excited hang out with people's version of myself, but every time there is a fallout. I need a few hours and sometimes even a whole day to reset. 

I love to be with people and to share my life in my community there is no doubting that, but just as much as I like to do those things I also like to sit alone by myself and write, or read, or even watch endless Youtube videos about live music looping from Dovydas or drains being cleared out, we’ve all been down that late night Youtube video rabbit hole. 

I don’t want you to walk away from reading this expecting you have to change everything about your life, thinking that you need to completely stop your alone time. I actually hope it's the opposite, I do hope that you find a good community that you can invest in and be invested in, but I also hope that you understand the value of being alone. 

When I say alone I don’t mean being alone in a room scrolling through instagram wishing your life would be different than it is, no, what I mean is doing things that are productive or things that you find rest in. For me, writing is a great way for me not only to be productive, but to find rest. Currently as I write these words I am sitting alone in my office while my two month old son naps next to me, I have a Hans Zimmer playlist going and every so often I check my phone to see what my wife or student group chat has to say. 

I have also found moments where I totally disconnect, moments like after camp a few weeks ago. After five crazy days of 280+ students and 50+ adults always asking where you are and what is going to happen next I needed to completely unplug from humanity. I came home from camp Friday evening and helped my wife unpack and start the laundry, we made a small dinner and headed up to our room where we ate in our bedroom quietly watching some netflix show. 

The next day is when I found solace. I woke up to the sound of my son trying to make up words, both my dogs were very interested in what he had to say. After getting up and changing his wet diaper I got back into bed and gave him a bottle, we sat in silence together and just listened to the morning come to life. For the most part of that day I sat in silence, while my wife was able to go to the gym and workout, and even when she was home she spent the majority of the time cleaning up the mess our dogs made while we were away. I have nothing wrong with being alone, so don’t misunderstand when I say, even in our moments by ourselves we still need community. 

What does that mean “Even in our moments by ourselves we still need community”? I think it is actually quite simple, at least once you have a community in place. Like I said, being alone is an important party of humanity even for an extrovert, but the reality is we cannot stay there. In our current culture we have found ways to continue to disconnect ourselves while believing we are connected, let me give you some examples of what I mean. 

Texting, most of us don’t go a day without texting our family, friends, or loved ones, but how many times do we replace texting with real communication. Now I know that some of the students I work with might read this and try to defend how important texting is to them, how they are able to be more transparent over texting than in person. I believe that is wrong and that it should be the exact opposite. 

We can so easily seclude ourselves and believe the lie that we are connected to people in the community, when the reality is we are only digitally connected. It is important that we understand the value of true face to face connection, because we can become cold and lack empathy when we remove the human connection side of community.

Social Media, we love our social media right? I mean most of us have checked Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter today right? I know I have, but how many times do we justify that we have connected with people because we liked their photos or status? Don’t get me wrong, I know how awesome social media can be.

For years I grew up thousands of miles away from my extended family. We moved to Arizona when I was 11 years old, all while the majority of my family lived in Colorado or Iowa. It would be years that I would go without seeing my many cousins or amazing grandparents, and it was hard. I wasn’t able to connect with my extended family like so many of my friends could. Because of social media, over the past five years I have been able to be closer to each of my family members who now live all across the united states.

Social media can be used for good, but my perception of how the majority of us use it, I see as negative. We use it to connect with friends and family, but so many of us myself included waste hours of our day pointlessly looking and comparing our lives to those on the other side of the screen. The reality of those posts though is that it is the best part of their life. I know we all know one or two crazies who post everything and some on their social media, but the majority of humans only post the best of the best. We can get so caught up in the comparison that it becomes detrimental to our community. 

I believe that we can use social media to our benefit, but we must be wise and understand our limits before it begins to deconstruct the fragile bond within our community. We must be willing to be alone and not try to be connected every moment of the day. When we are able to pull ourselves away from the constant barrage of life both on and off line, we can begin to truly find rest and peace in the things that we are going through, and we can connect deeper with our community. 

I encourage you then, what does it look like to be alone, not that we rip away community or loved ones. But to focus for a moment on the world around us and what God might be trying to tell us. This reminds me of prayer life, for so many of us Prayer was something that we learned to do simply by our parents before a meal or bed, or prayer was something we watched while the pastor did it from stage. 

There is so much good that can come from communal prayer, intercession, agreement of the community and petition to Christ as one. We’ve seen it, as a church gathers around someone who was diagnosed with cancer, or the young person shipping off to boot camp, or the missionary who visited their church. Communities coming together to pray are powerful. 

But how is your prayer life at home? How is it alone in your room or kitchen? Are we treating prayer time alone like a holy vending machine, typing in the numbers after “paying our dues,” or are we investing our time and life into having a conversation with Jesus? 

I, like so many of you, have struggled with prayer. In fact, though I feel like I have gotten better at it recently, I still tend to struggle. There are some simple tricks that I think can help improve your prayer life, so that when we spend time alone it can be a good investment of our time and life. 

Here are a few tips on how to create a more consistent prayer life that my friend Alicia helped create. 

Actions Steps to create consistent prayer life: 

1) Pray for the ability to make prayer a more consistent thing in your life

2) Set a time in your calendar for it each day - it doesn't have to be for hours, just start with 5-15 minutes.

3) Habit stack - what is something else you do regularly that you can then stack prayer on to as well? 

Here are some examples.
Brushing your teeth in the morning? Pray after you finish. 

Driving to or from work? Pray during your drive rather than listen to the radio. 

Working out? Set a time to pray after you get finished 

4) Use other prayers as a starting point 

An example might be, The Book of Common Prayer (buy a physical copy or go to bookofcommonprayer.net)

The Lord's Prayer

Psalms - many prayers in there 

Something to remember: 

Silence is normal

It may feel boring at times

Distractions will happen - have a pen and paper to write them down - then refocus

This isn’t something to master but a time for us to be formed

Trust that God is always there.

I encourage you all to make a conscious effort to spend some time alone. Yes, I do want you to be in community and to have community, but it is impossible unless you live in a commune to spend every waking moment in a community. So take those moments when you are alone and create space to hear God, to speak your heart to Him and listen for answers.

I really like the last point that Alicia made in her steps to creating a better prayer life. Silence is normal. I’ve struggled with that, so often I want to have music playing in the background, or the quiet lull of some show or movie, I don’t even watch it sometimes I just want it on. How can we hear Christ if we continue to fill the void of silence with noise? 

So though this challenge of being alone and quiet might be hard, I do believe that it will help you become better. As you become better and spend the moments alone you have in intercession, prayer, and silence listening for Christ your community will feel the impact of your growth. You will become a better member of your community who truly cares about those within it, and you will have a mindset that is able to stop and listen to what others might be staying. 

2: To Be Done In Community

Community can be defined as a unified body of individuals, Merriam-Webster goes on to say these things about community, “A people with common interests living in a particular area; a group of people with a common characteristic or interest; a body of persons of common and especially professional interests; a body of persons or nations having a common history or common social, economic, and political interests; a group linked by a common policy; an interacting population of various kinds of individuals; joint ownership or participation; common character.”

Most people understand the basics of community and most people on this planet are a part of a small community already, whether it be at work, church, or a part of a social club like a men's hockey league. The vast majority of people already have community, or at least they believe they do. In my current understanding of the human condition I believe that humanity has gone away for the most part, from a good wholesome community. 

Now I am not trying to say that community can only be found within a church or religious group, I actually found a community in a totally secular group of people. What I am trying to communicate with you, is that we have fallen away from real connection, from real community that will be there for you when you are at your darkest and lowest part, not just the community that will celebrate your wedding or birth of your child. 

It was mid 2016, I was single and living on my own for the first time and I was loving it. Well, I was loving it up until I realized the complete responsibilities that awaited me every day as an adult. By no means do I now have this all figured out, I rely on my wife quite a bit today! But, just a few years ago I started to see how hard life could really be, and at this point of my life my community was small.

Now in mid 2016 I was the youth pastor at my church and had a great body of people who said they cared about me and wanted the best for me, I believe wholeheartedly that they did and still do, but my community was small and even though I had people at my church who did care, my ability to reach out to those people was small. I didn’t trust everyone of them fully yet, I only knew the outside layer of their lives, the parts that they wanted to show me, and a part of that was the words “I’m here for you”. 

I had moved into an apartment by myself in March of that year, I didn’t know at  the time when I moved in how expensive rent could really be. After searching for a place to live for six months prior I settled on a place in Mesa where the rent was just over $800 for a single bedroom, it was right off the freeway and only a fifteen minute drive to work. I felt safe enough, even though I didn’t know the area well. 

Before I even settled on a place to live in Phoenix I found a hockey rink to play at, I know. my priorities were probably not in the right order during this time, but I found a place that was close to the rink and close to work. I spend two nights a week going to play hockey, first just at a beginners class that costs $20 a session, and later at a league that costs $300 a season. Hockey was important to me and it was a great way to exercise and find stress relief. I still play to this day, but I have found a better rhythm that doesn't break the bank. 

So between my new $800 a month apartment, $120 a month hockey addiction, and all of the other bills that I now had to pay for my monthly income sat around -$50 a month, yes you read that right negative 50. I had never really built a budget or held true to one, so I wasn’t concerned about my finances, money came in every second week and out every day. 

So in mid 2016 I had paid all of my bills and looked at my account. 

Checking: $47.26

Savings: $100.00

My heart dropped, how could I let this happen? How could I not have any money left in the bank? It had to be the rent, it had to be my bills, it had to be my student loans… It was hockey. Yeah, I know, I was not the smartest twenty-four year old.

I walked over to my kitchen and opened up my cupboards. I had a half a bag of rice, a can of old tuna and a jar of peanut butter. I pulled up my phone and looked at the calendar, when was my next payday? 

Two weeks. 

Two weeks?! How was I going to survive on rice, peanut butter and an old can of tuna? The good thing was I’m a big guy, and so my body could probably make it on my “extra supply” for two weeks! 

I began to think about any meetings I was planning to have and if I could make them lunch meetings. I knew I couldn’t do that everyday so I pulled up my phone and thought about calling my boss, his number sat on my screen for a few minutes before I finally just turned off my phone. I was ashamed, I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t want to admit to anyone that I had put myself into this spot. I decided to take a walk, well actually a skate.

I laced up my rollerblades and started around the neighborhood, it was around 11:00 pm that night. Pokemon Go was all the rage, so as I played some Coldplay, I skated around the neighborhood trying to catch Pokemon. I ended up getting back to my place around 12:30 am and went right to bed.

The next morning I woke and was starving. I had two spoonfuls of my last jar of peanut butter and headed out the door, no starbucks today, at least the office had a keurig machine! I headed into work and got my cup of Costco brand coffee, someone had brought in doughnuts for the day, so there was my breakfast! I worked through my lunch that day, no one noticed because it was common that I would do that. 

The end of the day came and I headed home, the whole fifteen minute drive, I thought about how I could make white rice taste different, what seasonings could I toss on it to make it feel bigger than it was. I pulled into my complex and walked into my small dirty apartment, not having to really worry about dinner. I noticed how I had let the place go. 

That's when my phone rang.

Mike: Hey Bud, whatcha doing tonight?

Me: Ahhh, nothing, probably just watching some netflix and going to bed early.

Mike: Want to grab a bite with Patti and I? 

Me: (Stunned)

Mike: We could meet somewhere out by you? What sounds good?

Me: Ummm, anything! What do you guys wanna do?

Mike: How about Native Wings? Patti wants to try that place.

Me: Sounds great! See you at 6?

Mike: Catch you there!

What in the world? Why did Mike and Patti want to take me out to dinner on a Monday night? I wasn’t quite sure, but I wasn’t turning it down. 

This wasn’t the first time that Mike and Patti had taken me out for a meal. The first people outside of the church staff who introduced themselves to me were Mike and Patti, they talked about how they had worked with the youth in the past and how excited they were to see me at Tempe, they wanted to make sure I felt at home and that I had a place. They actually cared about me and what I was going through, not just that I fit the bill of what they were looking for in a pastor. 

I cleaned up my apartment before I headed out the door, I had an hour or so in between when Mike called and when I had to leave. You would be surprised how well a single 24 year old man could clean! I drove out to the Native Wings where we decided to meet and met Mike and Patti at the door, they were early as usual. They greeted me with a smile and a hug, such a warm welcome after a stressful day of trying to figure out how to make plain rice interesting. 

We ordered our food and enjoyed conversation, we talked about what was new in our lives and how we were excited for what was to come in 2016, Mike and Patti genuinely cared about me, they asked good questions really diving into who I was and what my goals and plans were for the year. 

That's when they told me the real reason for taking me to dinner. Mike said to me that the real reason they wanted to take me out to dinner was to get me out so they could buy me groceries. I was stunned, how did they know? I don’t remember telling them that I was broke or in need of food. 

Mike said that they knew how tough it could be to move into a new city with no friends, and how starting the adult journey could be difficult. They wanted to be there for me, to make sure that I was going to be alright and didn't need to stress out about anything like where my next meal was coming from. 

Not going to lie to you guys, I totally broke down crying in the middle of a Native WIngs, when they asked me what was wrong I told them where I really was, $147.26, a bag of rice, jar of peanut butter, and an old can of tuna to my name. Their generosity could not have come at a better time. We laughed together and left the native and headed to the local grocery store. 

The next two weeks I had plenty of food, and made much better money choices as well. Every time I came across Mike he would ask “How are you doing? Do you need anything?”. Mike and Patti really cared, they really did want to see me find success in my life and knew that I could not do it alone.

This is one of the stories that I have in my life where community made the difference. Again, I would not be where I am today without a good community around me, a community that cared and actually asked the hard questions. Sometimes they didn't ask at all, sometimes they just did because they loved me. 

The reality is, for me in 2016 I had a large community of people who cared for me at my church, but there was really only a small group of those people who wanted to do something. And I don’t say that to dig on my church, because I love my people there and I do believe If I were to ask any of them almost everyone would have given. But, community should be more than that, community shouldn’t wait to be spurred into action but should always be moving. 

Our lives need to be shared in community, and not just a large common group of people who give “the headnod” as we walk into the door, but people who actually care about who you are. People who want to sit down and invest their time into your life and do something to make it better. Community is important to invest into, because we cannot expect people to constantly be pouring themselves into us, we must also be willing to give all that we have back into the community.