Isolation vs Community

I know this sounds rather morbid, but I always had a fascination for criminal psychology, cult mentality and other fields of human stupidity. I have this burning question within: what makes intelligent people do really stupid things?

And when you take this fascination and apply it to the book of Proverbs, you get interesting insights. As most of you know, I've built a congregation-first paradigm for worship ministry, based on the forgotten commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. Because many people don't see the worship ministry this way, there are still a lot of performance-minded people in the worship ministry.

I've said it before, Performers, because what they do need not take the specific needs of the congregation into account, can end up separated from the rest of the Body of Christ. If they ever encounter any opposition or misunderstanding from the body of Christ they face the danger of ending up offended and resentful. They can see themselves as modern-day Jeremiahs, misunderstood and persecuted by some elements in the body of Christ, and they start being defensive and easily offended. Once they go that route it is only a matter of time before they become hardened and calloused in their hearts. They start to hold ideas like “As long as God is with me, I can ignore the rest of those back-slid, lukewarm, pew-warming people who are pitiful excuses for Christians. I don’t need them…”

What I recently found out (Thanks, George!) was that there already was a verse that described this situation, Proverbs 18:1.

A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; He rages against all wise judgment. (NKJV)

What are the possible factors causing a person to isolate himself from the rest of the body of Christ? One factor is unresolved offences with other believers. These can cause a believer to develop a persecution complex, believing that everyone else is out to get them, that they are the only true believers left, while everyone else is backslidden and used by the devil to whack them. Performers are especially prone to this deception.

Another factor is basic temperament. Some people are just socially inept by upbringing, or really shy by nature (or both, like me for example). More serious, however, are cases when a person hasn't been brought up to care for other people.

In child development psychology, this is called egocentrism. It doesn't mean that the person is proud, it means that this person doesn't (or can't) see things from another person's point of view. In the developmental paradigm of Jean Piaget (you can look him up on Wikipedia) children go through a stage when they are caught up in egocentrism (usually between the ages of 3 to 8 years old).

At that age, children may do selfish things, not because they are selfish but because it is difficult for them to conceptualize any better. What becomes a problem is when a child is not nurtured past this stage, or because of some traumatic life events a person regresses back to this stage. Then we get what's described in the NIV translation of this verse:

An unfriendly man pursues selfish ends; he defies all sound judgment. (NIV)

Yet another factor that can lead to a person isolating himself/herself from the rest of the Body of Christ is a lack of confidence or self-esteem. In fact, this is the story I actually wanted to share with you in this post.

There was this season when my personal confidence was very much shaken. I had things go wrong on me and received about one major blow per day that season. And I started retreating into myself and shutting myself up from other people. I was going down the path of isolating myself and losing my clarity, judgment and discernment.

Pretty much out of nowhere two of my friends got in touch with me again. They are the ones who have always been encouraging and supportive of my crazy ideas… or shall we say, my crazier ones, since there are people who think all my ideas are crazy. They didn't know what was going on, they just had some stuff to contact me over.

And just the reminder that they were there, and the memories of all the help, encouragement and advice they gave me in the past, was enough to snap me out of my persecution complex and my pity party.

The lessons I got out of this incident were:

1) God himself wants you to stay in community with other believers. He will arrange for people to contact you when you may be tempted to isolate yourself, or he will prompt you to contact other believers to bless them by your presence and encouragement.

In either case, don't dismiss the work God wants to do for you and through you. If you are beginning to isolate yourself, swallow your pride and share with that sibling-in-Christ your struggles and burdens. If you feel led to call up a sibling-in-Christ out of nowhere, make the call, send the email or mobile phone text message NOW. Don't make the mistake of thinking "I'll do it later." I'm so glad my two friends didn't delay…

2) You too can proactively seek out other believers to encourage them. The reason these two can minister to me just by contacting me is because we have lots of shared experiences. And these didn't just happen, we put in effort to nurture our relationships before. The three of us had our fair share of misunderstandings, bloopers and tough conversations when we messed things up. And my friends were able to minister to me (probably without knowing it) because WE (not just I or they, but WE) worked through things and kept the fellowship intact no matter what.

Of course, if you know that a sibling-in-Christ has suffered a disappointment or setback recently, you might want to get in touch with them to make sure they're ok. These setbacks can be crushing if they come one after another. Your sibling-in-Christ might be having the courage and strength crushed out of them by their circumstances, by one setback after another, without you knowing it. It's better to just take the chance and get in touch with them, just to be sure.

… encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. (Hebrews 3:13, NIV)

That's about it for now. I'll be posting some other stuff soon (fingers crossed). In the meantime, be blessed, everyone!