69: Community Identity

[00:07] Stephanie: Welcome to Deeper Walk’s On the Trail podcast. You are on the trail with father-daughter duo, Marcus and Stephanie Warner. I’m Stephanie, and I’ll be talking with my father, Dr. Marcus Warner, as we discuss topics that help you stay on the trail to a deeper walk with God. Season 1, episode 69. Today we are looking at the role of community in identity formation.

Hello, Father.

[00:30] Marcus: Hello, Daughter.

[00:31] Stephanie: Guess what?

[00:32] Marcus: What?

[00:33] Stephanie: I’m off to Scotland today.

[00:35] Marcus: Oh, wow. That’s today! Man!

[00:40] Marcus: Do we have to talk with a Scottish accent throughout the episode? ‘Cause I don’t think I can.

[00:46] Stephanie: I’m not very good at Scottish accents. Maybe I’ll have to practice.

[00:49] Marcus: Any kind of brogue will do.

[00:51] Stephanie: I’m so excited and it’s actually lovely. I’m gonna have to keep in mind the things we talk about today while I’m in Scotland, because for the first week that I’m there, I’m going for some community with some fellow writers. I’m very excited.

[01:08] Marcus: That’s cool. I’ve heard a rumor you’re going to be in a castle.

[01:11] Stephanie: Well, it’s an estate.

[01:13] Marcus: An estate?

[01:14] Stephanie: Yeah.

[01:14] Marcus: Okay. We’ll call it a castle that doesn’t have a bell library, but it’ll do.

[01:20] Stephanie: Yes. Maybe I should have saved that announcement for actually the next exercise that we’re going to do. Today’s icebreaker is from one of our listeners Bonnie, who wants us to “play GAMES”, as in your acrostic. We’re talking about community today and I love playing games, whether it’s the acrostic or not. But I love games in a community context. You know, it’s something you can do for yourself as an individual, but it’s really fun to do in community. So do you want to give us a brief presentation of your acrostic GAMES, and then maybe we can play it a little?

[01:56] Marcus: Sure. I actually created the acrostic GAMES when somebody asked me to do a Thanksgiving presentation. As I always do, there’s a past, present, and future element to this. But they’re also like, what am I grateful for from the past? What am I grateful for in my present? What am I grateful for in anticipation? Just like you’re anticipating Scotland. But then there’s things that you can do, that’s the E, experiences. They’re experiences you can create intentionally because you know it’ll increase the likelihood of there being joy. It gives you something to anticipate. Like, you can plan a game night, or you can say, I’m going to go take a walk. I’m going to go do something I know I like. That’s an experience. And then there is singing. So I took the past, present, and future and turned it into GAM. So M is memories, the past. A is anticipation, the future, and G is gratitude, the present.

[02:52] Stephanie: And this is  joy building.

[02:53] Marcus: This is how we grow our joy, it’s through appreciation exercise. So we start with G, gratitude. What am I grateful for in the present right now? So for me, honestly, I generally start with the weather and I look at the sky. I love the clouds, I’m grateful for that. But I can also look around and say, I really am enjoying the setup of our studio. There’s cool new equipment that I know Ben got that I’m admiring and enjoying. And it’s fun just to see the studio taking shape.

[03:31] Stephanie: It is fun to exist in this space. It is in development. So then A would be anticipation. Me! I am anticipating! I’m going to Scotland! I’m going to see people and I’ve never been to Scotland. I’m going to get to explore and adventure, and I’m going with one of my very best friends in the whole world. We’re going to do it together. And it’s going to be a time of writing whatever I want to write, and it’s great. Okay, I’m gonna wind it down. I can just keep going with my anticipation.

[04:04] Marcus: It will be today’s podcast.

[04:05] Stephanie: Yeah.

[04:05] Marcus: Yeah. That’s pretty good. M is memories. It makes me remember when we got to go to Ireland with you. You were already in Ireland for a semester and Mom, Ben and I got to go and spend a little bit of time with you. To see where you had been. And I had never been to the British Isles ever, it is still the only time I’ve ever been to the British Isles. I’ve never been to Scotland either. That was a great memory. I remember especially taking day trips and driving on the left side of the road instead of the right side of the road. I only hit a few curbs, it was not too bad. Yeah, that was a fun memory.

[04:48] Stephanie: Yes. And then E, experiences.

[04:51] Marcus: Like last night, we played a game.

[04:54] Stephanie: Cards Christians Like.

[04:55] Marcus: Cards Christians Like. It’s kind of like Apples to Apples for Christians. That was pretty fun. We laughed a lot last night, that was good.

[05:03] Stephanie: Mom was just sweeping.

[05:04] Marcus: Oh, I know. She cleaned house!

[05:07] Stephanie: I think she won twelve in a row. Anyway, that was great. Out of that experience we were talking about hey, we used to do more game nights. We should do this more often. And then singing.

[05:20] Marcus: Singing, yeah. It’s like at the end of the night last night, I pulled up a Pandora station of old 1990s Christian music. Just to listen to the music and sing along. And there’s something about it that brings up memories and connects. And so singing is a great way to build some joy.

[05:42] Stephanie: And you never know when it might summon community, because the other night you had Brian Duncan on and I appeared.

[05:49] Marcus: You appeared dancing and singing. I was like, it was a joyful moment.

[05:55] Stephanie: That’s amazing. All right, well, I thank you for asking us to “play GAMES”, Bonnie. I love this acrostic, and I specifically love it for doing in community. I think it’s a wonderful way to get people laughing and talking and joy building together. So there you go, as we continue into the rest of the episode about community. Gosh, at some point we should just do a whole series focused on community. There’s obviously lots to cover, but for now, we’re going to cover some basics from the identity formation angle. So Father, talk to us about identity and community.

[06:33] Marcus: All right. So several episodes ago, we were talking about the role of attachment informing our identity, and how the brain needs relational interaction in order to form its identity. This brings us back around to the role of church and the role of Christian community. It isn’t enough for the church just to tell me in a left brain sort of way, you are a saint, you are a child of God. That’s good, but I also have to have that reinforced by the activities. And my community needs to be reminding me when I’m not living that way. It’s like, hey, you know what? You’re a saint. That’s not really what we do around here.

Or, you know what? You’re a child of God. Don’t get so down on yourself. You know, that’s okay. It’s part of the role of a community to remind us of who we are and to reinforce who we are in that way. And again, it goes both directions. As part of the community one of my jobs is making sure that we’re acting like ourselves. So I’ll give you an example. Like, I’m an elder at a church. So to be an elder at church means you deal with problems.

And when you’re dealing with problems you’re usually dealing with people. And so when you’re dealing with people’s problems, a large part of what I often do in my role is to kind of remind people that we are a people who keep relationships bigger than problems. What’s the most relational way we can approach this and still solve the problem? We don’t want to just avoid the problem, but we want to make sure that we handle this problem relationally. So what would be a good way to do this that honors the relationship that we’ve had with this person for so long, still addresses the problem, and keeps the relationship intact moving forward?

So that would be something that we want our community to do. Every community has core values, and those core values sometimes are statements that we write up and forget about. But when they’re really living out of those core values, they guide how we encourage each other and how we correct each other in community life. And so every community has its own identity. Every community, especially every Christian community, is supposed to be reinforcing and encouraging our true identity in Christ. And so there’s a lot there.

[09:04] Stephanie: That’s a wonderful segue to my next question.

[09:07] Marcus: All right, good.

[09:10] Stephanie: In Jim Wilder’s book, The Pandora Problem, then also in his book with Michel Hendrix, The Other Half of Church, Jim talks about identity statements that are used in both community formation and individual formation. They are also helpful for correcting narcissism which is the core topic of The Pandora Problem. And so I wanted us to talk a little bit about community identity statements, which you just gave in your example there. So a community identity statement would be like, who are we? How is it like us to be? I love the chapter in The Other Half of Church about this, and I just pulled a few examples that Jim and Michel gave that I thought would be instructive. “We are a people who take God’s commands seriously.” “We are a people who reconcile as quickly as possible.” “We are a people who love our enemies and pray for them.” “We are a people who always give thanks to God for everything.” “We are a people who avoid and expose the works of darkness.” And you can go on and on. There are so many different core things. I wanted you to talk about that and then maybe what’s a strategic way that people can develop their group identity statements.

[10:28] Marcus: Yeah. So there’s several things that go into this. Part of our group identity will always be our mission. What is the mission that brings us together? Why are we even together? It’s like we’re gathering together because we want to do something about a problem. So whenever you’re talking about vision and you’re talking about mission, you’re talking about problem solving. If I’m going to help somebody who says, I’m not very visionary and I’m like, okay, so how do you figure out what you’re really passionate about? The question comes down to, if you could solve one problem, what would it be?

Our group usually exists as a group partly because there’s a problem we’re trying to solve, that would be our mission. Now, sometimes the problem we’re trying to solve is our own immaturity. We’re all trying to grow up a little bit. Sometimes the problem we’re trying to solve is that we want to do something about a justice issue, or we want to do something about evangelism. There’s a mission that is usually a part of our identity statement. Let me just give another way of illustrating it that can help. Let’s say that I am the manager of a restaurant. We could have a core identity that says we’ll do whatever it takes to get the customers money.

Or we can have an identity that says we want to give people the best dining experience on this side of town. So if my identity is that we are the sort of people who give our customers an outstanding dining experience, that’s an identity statement, and that’s also our mission. So there’s something to that. And if I lose that identity, it’s going to change the whole culture. So there’s that. It also gets down to our values and what’s important to us. At Deeper Walk for example, we have four core values that can be turned into mission statements and it shockingly spells something.

[12:32] Stephanie: Would it be Deeper Walk core values if it didn’t?

[12:34] Marcus: Yeah. So it spells GROW.  We are a generous people. And our statement is that we are a generous people who want to find win-win solutions, and we will err on the side of generosity in finding those solutions. So that gives us guidance on how we go about interacting with people. And I can tell you many email conversations that I’ve had where people are like, well, you know what? It’s like us to be generous, so let’s go ahead and do this for that person. So that’s a guiding principle of who we are.

We are relational and we will deal with relationships before problems. We will always make the relationship bigger than the problem. And this means we deal with problems, but we’re going to try to do it in the most relational way possible.

And then O is that we own what we do and we don’t try to avoid responsibility. This is sort of our anti-narcissist statement. It’s like we’re going to own our mistakes and not throw other people under the bus, in order to try to avoid shame. And we will not self-justify, we won’t throw other people under the bus, we’re going to own it. So that’s our “we are people who own our mistakes” statement.

And then W is wisdom. We are people who seek wisdom both from God and from other sources. We want to get good advice, we want to surround ourselves with wise counselors, we want to get good input, and we want to seek God. And so we practice corporate prayer. We practice listening prayer as a group on regular occasions. So understanding that this is our identity, this is who we are is our core value statement. And if it’s really driving what you do. We frequently reference those core values in making decisions that need to be made as a group. So there’s actually little difference between a values statement document and an identity statement document. It’s just taking those core values and turning it into a “we are a people who”, kind of thing.

[14:39] Stephanie: Yeah, that’s really good. So let’s look at how we frequently see people forming their group identity. A lot of people mistake our malfunctions as our identity. We don’t want our group identities to form around our pain, our addictions, and our trauma. Let’s camp out on this a little bit.

[15:00] Marcus: So again, just taking this from a brain perspective. I don’t want to reinforce that my identity is who I am when my brain is misfiring. Let’s review the joy elevator concept. I have attachment, I have assessment, which is good, bad or scary, my amygdala. And that functions like a joy switch. When that switch is on the elevator can continue up to where I can attune to other people. I can read them correctly and we can share experiences together. And then I get up to the action center, the fourth floor, where I act like myself. I remember who I am and I’m acting like myself.

So what we’re talking about here is if my behavior is coming out of a place of stuckness, and the elevator isn’t getting all the way up to the top floor, I don’t want to then define myself by who I am when I’m stuck. I don’t want to define myself by who I am when I’m triggered. I want to define myself by who I am when my brain is functioning at the proper level. So we start there. Now, when you take that and realize that our malfunctions tend to be related to what we have talked about in past episodes as our sad, sad emotions. I don’t want to take my identity from shame. I don’t want to take my identity from anger, that I’m just an angry person and you just need to get used to it.

In fact, I met with somebody at lunch today and they made a great point. If somebody says to you, well, that’s just the way I am. And they are defending the fact that they don’t deal with shame, they’re an angry person, or they’re a depressed person, that’s actually a narcissistic statement. Because what they’re trying to do is avoid the shame of owning what’s going on here. And so, just to review the sad, sad, it’s shame, anger and disgust. Sadness, anxiety, fear and despair. And so, again, despair would be I’m just a depressed person. That’s who I am. I’m just an anxious person. That’s just who I am. We want to avoid taking our identity from the malfunctions that are going on. So you can take that down to the addiction level. I’m just an addict. That’s who I am.

It’s like, no, that’s actually me malfunctioning. So the good news is that I can develop and grow beyond that to where I’m not controlled by those things. And  we want to remember who we are. So one of the jobs of the community around us is to not define us by our malfunctions. And we need to not define others in our community by their malfunctions.

[17:44] Stephanie: And now that does not mean to ignore the malfunctions. That does not mean to ignore those things that are going on. But we are not defining ourselves by those things.

[17:51] Marcus: Exactly. Now, I can say I am feeling despair. I am feeling this way and I feel that way a lot. That’s all true. And we’re not saying to be in denial, but we’re saying, I don’t want to take my identity from those things. And we don’t want the community reinforcing this idea that you at your worst is who you are. That’s not a good thing. We need to make sure that we’re encouraging people to combine this brain’s desire to live from the top level with the covenant. What the covenant says is true about us and call that out of people and say, hey, I see in you this.

And so one of the things that community does is it often calls out of us things that we don’t even see in ourselves. Like, I see in you a very compassionate heart for people who are in this kind of pain. Or I see in you a desire to bring order where there’s disorder, or this tenacity that won’t quit until things are the way they’re supposed to be. So you look at all those things, or I see a strong mercy thing in you. It takes a community to see those things and call them out of people and help them, and encourage them. Live out of your true heart and out of the heart Jesus gave you. And not just out of your malfunctions.

[19:15] Stephanie: Yeah. So what does it look like to be a healthy member of this community? What does it look like to not only receive people giving you goodness, but to be somebody who does that.

[19:28] Marcus: Let me introduce it this way. One of the ways that you can tell what a community actually values is by what the peer pressure is around. Like, you go to some places and you can tell that there is peer pressure around wearing a mask and pretending that everything is okay. And the community does not want you bringing up your problems. They want you to bury them. They want you to hide them. They want you to put on a false front because they want everything to be just so, so. So you can tell what a community truly values by what there’s peer pressure around.

On the other hand, there are places where there is some peer pressure around, no, you need to be authentic. You need to be honest about what’s going on. You need to be vulnerable about this, but there are places where it can go too far. And that is we only want you in your brokenness. We don’t want you to desire health. We don’t want you to desire maturity. We want you to glory in your brokenness and your woundedness. So a healthy community is one that brings together vulnerability and empathy. So vulnerability says, this is what is authentically going on in my life, I’m not hiding it.

And empathy is saying, wow, thank you for sharing. I can treat that with gentleness and meet you where you are. Now that doesn’t mean that we’re going to leave it there and do nothing about it. The fact that I’ve been gentle with it doesn’t mean that we’re not going to try to find a way to help you to take another step of maturity. Take another step of growth to do something, to go further with this. And I think that’s where we get stuck sometimes. We think that oh, an empathetic response means I have to just accept what is.

[21:27] Stephanie: Well, it goes back to validate, like VCR. And validation doesn’t mean affirmation.

[21:32] Marcus: Validation just means this is in fact how you’re feeling. It doesn’t mean it’s how you should be feeling. I can start with validation, but ultimately I don’t want you to be stuck in that emotion. I would like to help you get back to a place of joy. So healthy communities are places that are characterized by true vulnerability met with empathy. So when I am vulnerable and I am shamed for being vulnerable, now the core value being communicated to me is that in our community, we don’t value authenticity. We value looking good. It’s a real thing.

If you notice – different churches dress in different ways. And it’s interesting, because as subtle as that is it’s like people quickly learn what their community wants in terms of dress. Should I wear blue jeans? Should I wear a suit? You know, am I wearing pearls? Am I wearing shorts? What am I wearing to this church? Do we raise our hands, do we not? Do we clap, do we not? What are we doing here?

And even like, what kind of Christian language do I use most commonly with this group? Are there a lot of hallelujahs and praise the Lord, and brothers and sisters? A group identity is formed by all of these things that says, this is the sort of people we are and this is how we do things around here. And what we want to do is make sure that the values that are molding our community are truly Biblical, and they are really calling out the true identity of who we are in Christ. There is in a sense, peer pressure, if you will, around making sure that we are who we say we are.

[23:28] Stephanie: So as you’re talking, I can already just sense the despair from how many people I have talked to over the years, and even just this year. People who are like, yeah, I’m all in, but my community wants nothing to do with this. Kind of like, how do I affect my community? What do I do? And whether that’s somebody who’s looking for a community that will do this for them, or somebody who’s like, I want to build community, but the people around me don’t seem to be open to it. Can you speak to some hope there?

[23:59] Marcus: Yeah. So there are community building skills that we can develop. And one of the things I tell people is that you can’t always find a community that does all these things already. I haven’t always been able to find those things throughout life, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t have people in my life who filled that role.

And so one of the community building skills that we all learn is to kind of collect people throughout our lives with whom we have this kind of relationship. And the goal is to have three people that I can be authentic with, who are empathetic, who are authentic with me, and I can be empathetic back with them. Because the depth of intimacy that I have in any relationship is directly connected with how vulnerable and how empathetic we are with each other.

And so where the vulnerability stops, intimacy stops. If I don’t feel safe being any more vulnerable than this, that’s the level of intimacy we’re ever going to have. And so if you can’t find that in your local church chances are you can find it with somebody somewhere. And so the goal is to begin collecting people and having these kinds of relationships wherever you can. And then wherever you’re at encouraging people to take the next step of the journey and pushing that group to try going one step further. Let’s try going one step further, what if we talk about at this level? And not getting upset with them if they are not ready.

[25:41] Stephanie: It’s often going to look like baby steps. I have several metaphors in my head. How to eat a whole cow, one hamburger at a time. I had a professor who used to say that all the time. Even if you see a whole picture, you’re not usually going to just automatically get the whole picture. So having strategies and steps for the baby steps to get there and to build it a piece at a time.

[26:10] Marcus: For people who are truly isolated, I know Dr. Wilder put together an exercise something like this. If I’m truly isolated, I just don’t have anybody, and I can’t sit here right now and think of anybody in my life that I have this kind of relationship with. You have to start where you’re at and you grow it a little bit.

And the exercise was something like this, just make a list of who you see every day. Do you see the mailman every day? Do you see somebody at the checkout counter at the local Subway every day? Who do you see every day? Who do you see once a week? Like, on Thursdays, you’re going to see this person someplace. Who do you see once a month? Just start making a list of who you know you’re going to see. And then ask yourself this question, how can I add just a little bit more joy to that relationship? Not to make that person my best friend, not to become completely vulnerable with that person, but just how can I add a little bit more joy to that relationship?

And then what happens, let’s say you’ve put together ten to twelve names and you add a little bit of joy into ten to twelve people. It begins to grow, right? And that begins to increase and now I’m on my way to beginning to build community. Because what happens is people like hanging out with you when you’re the sort of person who makes their problems smaller. They tend to run away when you’re the sort of person who makes their problems bigger.

And so what we want to do is be the sort of person who adds some joy and is good at making problems smaller. And that helps us grow our relational connections. And if I’m the sort of person who’s good at making your problem smaller, it’s much easier for you to listen to me when I have a problem that I need help with to make smaller. Because now it’s mutual. It’s going back and forth. If it’s one way that’s what we call counseling. It’s like, okay, I’m paying you to listen to me and be empathetic, that’s a little different. Otherwise, in most relationships we’re looking for something mutual.

[28:17] Stephanie: Yeah, that’s great advice. Well, hey, I am going to pull a testimony from one of our listeners and then I’ll come back to you for some final thoughts. So this woman says, “I am a 77 year old believer and have been for 47 years. I have experienced in the last several months an amazing amount of growth in the Lord. Much of it has been a lot of repentance and revelation. My husband of 54 years just told me this morning that he has seen me more at peace than he ever has. I am also being called to mentor and disciple women who are struggling with the similar things I have experienced and struggled with, and am now experiencing the greatest freedom and closeness to Jesus I’ve ever had. The Lord is so good, so patient, and never ever gives up on his children because of his passionate love and care. I’m also now in training to be a certified spiritual director, and I have a spiritual director, so thank you.”

[29:14] Marcus: Wow. Yeah. You know, that actually reminds me of your grandma.

[29:19] Stephanie: Yes.

[29:20] Marcus: Yeah, my mom, I can remember after age 65 she made some huge strides in her personal growth journey. Partly because sometimes just as a mom, you have to put a lot of your personal stuff on hold while you’re dealing with everybody else’s stuff. So I think it’s not uncommon sometimes for people when they get to that elder stage of life for God to say, okay, it’s time to press into some of these things.

It’s not uncommon at all. And so there’s a lot of people who get into their sixties, seventies, and eighties who actually find them great growth decades. They finally have some of the space that’s been needed for God to do some of the work. So it’s a fantastic testimony. Really encouraging. Just want to encourage other people out there too, it’s not too late.

[30:15] Stephanie: Yes. Amen. All right, so any closing thoughts Father?

[30:19] Marcus: So again, community is crucial. We’re talking about identity as ABC. That is attachment based, it’s belief based, and then it’s community reinforced. So we have to be careful not to link ourselves to toxic communities that are sabotaging our true identity in Christ; that are sabotaging our ability to develop our heart level identity. If we want this to grow and strengthen then we have to have people in our lives who are reinforcing our identity, and are good at calling those things out of us. Reminding us and correcting us when we’re not being that way. A friend isn’t really a friend if they can’t correct you.

And so I’m looking for all of these and I want to be that sort of person, because I want these mutual relationships in my life. Now there’s going to be times when I’m advanced and ahead of them, and there’s going to be times when I’m behind where they’re at. I like what Jim Wilder said one time that we should have three people upstream from us and three people downstream. Three people who are pouring into me at some level and three people I can pour into. All of my relationships don’t have to be peers. They don’t all have to be at exactly the same level of maturity I am at. We just have to be able to share something and be able to bring some joy to each other at some level.

And it doesn’t mean that I am advanced and beyond them in everything. It just means there’s something where they are the one pouring into me. And with others, there’s something where I’m the one pouring into them. And if I can think of it along that spectrum, it sometimes helps me to think if I can do that, I can kind of begin building community, Regardless of whether I find all of it already in place in my church or not.

[32:06] Stephanie: Yeah, that’s great advice and a lot of hope. We are wrapping up the identity series next episode and I’m looking forward to recapping. We’ve been talking about so much good stuff. So for now, thank you all for joining us on the trail today. Deeper Walk exists to make heart focused discipleship the norm for Christians everywhere. If you’d like to support this cause, you can become a Deeper Walk Trailblazer with your monthly donation of $25 or more. And if you want to keep going deeper with us on your walk with God, please subscribe to the On the Trail podcast, leave a review, and share with your friends.

Thanks again. We’ll see you back next week.