Vulnerability is such a crucial topic for us today, especially given the fact that most of us have never had such emotional availability in the form of a safe environment, modelled by our parents, yet community requires that we are available to and authentic with one another. We can only be authentic with others when we are assured that we have been accepted by God despite our shortcomings. We all need to have this blessed assurance, whether as a person seeking community or the person receiving others’ vulnerability. It is only then that we can be willing to share our lives with one another.
A lack of vulnerability is dangerous for the health of the church. It makes us pretend to be better than we really are, as we don’t want people to see our flaws but ironically, the whole point of living in community is to shape you and I into better persons. Hence, we need to leave that fear behind and be willing to put off our masks.
Secondly, we need to be gracious to one another, that is when somebody tells you about their struggles, we have to be able to treat that person’s perceived failures with grace and empathy. Being gracious to others also comes with accepting our own imperfections. In fact, what often happens is that when we know a person’s weakness or struggle and that happens to be our strength, we become harsh towards the person, but when it comes to our own weaknesses, we demand that they be gracious to us. We must be mindful of how we respond to other’s weaknesses and struggles.
Thirdly, we need repentance; for all the times we have failed to be gracious and authentic with one another. For example, we must repent of times when someone has annoyed us and we want to distance ourselves from them, and likewise we must be willing to repent when we are confronted with our own failures.
Fourthly, we all need to become more spiritually mature because vulnerabilty would only succeed in a mature environment, for example, we should not be the ones talking about someone else’s shortcomings simply for the sake of it, that’s gossiping and is evil. Individually, we must all mature to be the kind of persons that others can feel vulnerable with. Now, I am not recommending that you become blindly vulnerable with anyone in your community, you should only be vulnerable with people that deserve it, and are able to deal with your vulnerability properly, so, please don’t just share your issues and secrets with anyone in the name of being vulnerable.
When we grow in maturity, people will be able to observe us as those they can be vulnerable with and trust to give godly counsel, and that is how we can start to build a healthy and godly community. Now, in as much as we have taken all these steps, we must not forget that vulnerability is still an act of faith, you must be willing to admit that keeping to myself is not the best thing so you will take a chance.
Community can be hard so we must remind ourselves of these building blocks, as often as we need to; vulnerability, graciousness, forgiveness, repentance and spiritual maturity.
Building a vulnerable community can be complex but with the gospel as our founding principle and a knowing that we are accepted by God despite our failures and in effect be vulnerable with one another. Only then will our communities achieve the purpose for which God put us in it; discipleship. The beautiful thing is that if you find yourself struggling with being vulnerable, you can open up to one or two people who you’ve seen handle conflict in community well, so you can learn from them.
Lastly, to those who have experienced church hurt and decided to stay away from community, I’ll ask you to please reconsider. Yes, you may want to hold back and observe people’s characters so you can choose who and who not to be vulnerable with, but don’t totally give up on community. As a church, we will continue to encourage vulnerability as we keep talking about it in our sermons, Questions and Answer sessions, and Gospel Communities so we can practise community better.
Answered byYemi Osunubi, leader at City Church and Femi Osunnuyi, lead pastor of City Church, a gospel-centred urban church in the city of Lagos.