Community with or without purpose

Simon posted on his view of community; a journeying together. I like what he says about community being not purely about location but also about relation. I think community can also be based on intention. Curiously at the moment Reluctant Souls has not clear intention and I think that is why I am rather enjoying it as a balance to the very clear intention of my other new blog community over at Fem in YM. We're looking at the role of women in youth ministry and I know that in some ways that will put up barriers in some people's minds because it has a particular purpose. For others of course it will be a place of community on the basis of commonality and similar or shared experience. Yet I think it might also be a place of some debate and, dare I say it, conflict as I'm sure we might say a few provocative things not only about women in youth mnistry but in contast about men in youth ministry.

I think that Reluctant Souls might have the chance to be a barrier free zone exactly because it has no clear purpose except to be a community.

It is one of the things that always strikes me when I go to Taize in fact. The brothers have no agenda, no formal hierarchy, no committees and seem indulgent of those of us who find this concept hard to grasp. Br Paolo (one of the English brothers) responded this year to queries from our young people with a gentle reassurance, (I paraphrase) "Yes of course we have some disagreements but we get on with things." I think it is their lack of ownership of things, of power, of authority which frees them to be that way and I think the lack of ownership of reluctant souls might manage that too. Let's see...