Quotes from Joseph R. Myers

Let people move themselves. Don't insist on doing it for them.

Yet the four spaces are not an assembly line for growing community.

I wish for a front porch. I am not alone. In our time people have a hunger for a significant "median space." This may arise from the recent history of minimizing the importance of these relationships. Median spaces are the spaces that include our social and personal connections.

In other words, the servants may not know the difference between wheat and weeds. The servants are told that the decision will be made at the harvest.

Many belonged to Jesus in different spaces. The Bible mentions the multitudes, a room full, a crowd of seventy, twelve apostles, the inner circle of Peter, James, and John. All experienced community with Jesus.

As Kennon Callahan so aptly states, "only you can grow you."6

Small groups are not necessarily the most significant way to help people grow in relationship to God and to one another. +   People connect in all four spaces, not in just one or two. +   Community happens spontaneously. +   We can facilitate environments that help people connect.

People may want anonymity, but they do not want to be strangers.

It is simply not true that people who belong only in public space are "on the fringe." Nor is it true that we somehow need to get them to move "closer" to get them to be committed.

To effectively create a front porch experience, there cannot be any expectations that the group

would, should, or could move from social space into a different relational space.