I had a brief conversation with a friend tonight. He is involved in a ministry that’s trying hard to learn how to build richer community. Apparently another member of the ministry handed him a book—something like The Seven Deadly Sins of Small Group Ministry. I can’t be sure that’s the title, but it sounds right.

Now, I can’t say much for this book in specific. But it seems to be part of the big problem of over-complicating the concept of “community”.

I’ve been involved in a handful of fairly successful communities. By which I mean to say that they were fruitful, not necessarily that they lasted a long time. While they were different in their own respects, they all had two basic things in common.

1. Time

Authentic community simply doesn’t happen unless people will give their time. If community is reduced to the three programmed small group hours on a Wednesday night, then at its heart, the community is no more than a program demanding little more from it’s participants than their attendance. This is the way most churches do it. It doesn’t usually work.

Even when couples move into married life, time becomes a precious commodity. But, if community will leave a lasting impression, time has to be given.

2. Give a crap

The rest is pretty easy. Or it’s supposed to be. When you’re giving time to being in community, whether it be for dinner or a game of kickball or whatever, just give a crap about the people around you.

When someone says something, listen and care about it.

I think that if we get these two things right, there isn’t much need for The Seven Deadly Sins of Small Group Ministry. The elements are there, it’s just a matter of wading through the mess that is human relationships.

That’s my two cents.

I’m feeling very practical tonight. So, I’m going to share a little trick I came up with a couple of weeks ago which I’m particularly proud of.

I added more ribbons to my bible!

I was motivated to do this primarily by the bible reading plan that I follow. The plan has me in four different parts of the bible at all times. It becomes annoying having to flip through to all four different verses every day. So, to rectify that, first I used four pieces of paper. Of course, that worked, except that I keep my bible by my chair where people often sit in my room. During discussions, people would often reach over and use my bible–which is good. Except, in the process, they’d often lose the bookmarked page–which is annoying.

So, that leads me to this little trick I came up with. Here’s what I used: A plastic bottle (usually free), a spool of ribbon from Walmart ($0.50) and a lighter ($2.00).

Here’s what I did:

1. I used a plastic bottle, and cut a strip out of it. About 1″ x 4″.

2. Then, I drilled four holes in a square shape at the top of the plastic strip.

3. Then, I cut four strips of ribbon about one and a half times of the height of my bible.

4. I tied each ribbon on each of the four holes that were drilled.

5. I used the lighter to just barely melt the ends of each of the ribbons so that they wouldn’t melt.

6. Finally, I slipped on the un-drilled end of the plastic down into the spine of the bible leaving the ribbons hanging out the top.

Now the bible has five ribbons, including the one that it came with. I know this might seem like an awful lot of trouble to go through just for some bookmarks that are attached to the bible, but I can honestly say, they’ve enriched my spiritual life.

…Okay, maybe I won’t go that far, but they have been more convenient that I had first anticipated. Give it a try! It only takes 10 minutes!