One Year Down

It's hard to believe that I've been dating Taylor for a year.  I recently read through a journal from this time last year and found myself connecting with statements like 'This is so crazy weird' and 'I can't believe this happened' and 'Wow, he's even better than I thought.'  Pretty sure nothing's changed.  Since we've decided that we're in this for the long haul, one year is worth celebrating but, ultimately, not a very big deal.

I'd rather not bore you with every sappy detail of our dating life and the events that brought us together.  If you really want to know, take me out for coffee and I'll tell you.  If you don't, just thank me later.  All you really need to know is that we are living a love story, and it's a really, really good one.

What I would like to do in this post is reflect on the things that have worked for us, challenged us, and taught us a lot during this past year of dating:

1. Have a Love Story Apart From Each Other - Even before we started dating, or even knew each other, we each learned to fiercely pursue God.  God's love to both of us on a personal level provides a deep sense of identity and confidence.  We've also found that growing separately in our own private quiet times with God, and continued work on our own issues, makes everything we do share a whole lot more enjoyable.  We are committed to each growing deeper in relationship with Jesus and pointing the other person back to Him at every point.  Taylor's relationship with Jesus is more important to me than my relationship with Taylor, and vice versa.

It is also our love for God and desire to please Him above all else that translates into purity and honoring Him with our relationship.  We feel that it is a gift that He has given us, and we want to be completely faithful with it.  If we both didn't already have a strong love story with Jesus, the following list of things would be impossible.

2. Boundaries = Freedom - When we first got together, we set some intentional boundaries, using the intimacy triangle as a guide. We know that, to pursue God's best for us, we need to guard our hearts by remaining physically pure and honoring emotional boundaries.  Maybe you heard through the grape vine, but we're so crazy about each other, we don't kiss.  We don't think that there is really anything wrong with kissing (I hear it's pretty awesome) but we also know that it could be the gateway to a lot of things that God doesn't have for us right now.  With how we feel about each other, it could be dangerous... If you know what I mean.  As far as emotional boundaries go, we try not to 'emotionally make out,' which means that there are deep parts of our hearts and things in our individual journeys with God that we choose to share with friends and mentors first before processing and sharing with the other person.  One day (Lord willing), when we fully commit our lives to each other, the depths of our hearts will be something that we share.  Until then, Taylor and I only share those things after they become a testimony of where we have seen Kingdom come.  It's one of my favorite parts of our relationship!

The reason for keeping strong boundaries isn't so that we can get a special award, or because it's the 'right thing' to do, it's really about keeping the stakes low so that we can enjoy our relationship for what it is right now.  Because we have boundaries, we get to be free of worry about going too far or doing something we will regret.  For us, boundaries provide the framework that we get to work within as we date and fall more deeply in love.  We keep them up for discussion by talking monthly and as necessary about what's working and what's not.  This gives us a chance to evaluate the health of our relationship emotionally and physically, and to approach issues before they become full blown problems.  It has helped a lot!  I may be biased, but our relationship (hardcore boundaries and all) is my favorite - it's fun, amazing, exciting, and totally so freaking wonderful.

3. Discipleship - This works in a couple of ways: Jesus calls us to be disciples in that we are lifelong learners and to live lives worth imitating as we disciple others.  Our friends, the Ozorios, are an incredible resource and example of love and marriage.  We give them permission to probe and ask awkward questions.  We also have a policy of transparency with them - We don't keep any secrets about the ways that we are tempted or mistakes we make.  It's all fair game.  The O's also are great at helping us process through decisions we have to make together, bumps we hit, and other things that come up.  Along with time spent couple to couple, Taylor and I answer to Kelsi and Chris on an individual basis, whether it's in the context of a huddle or just a conversation over the phone or cup of coffee.

In addition, we recognize that there are people looking up to us.  If we wouldn't want someone to imitate our behavior, we don't want to do it.  In a way, we are challenged by the generation beneath us to honor God and remain pure.  We don't necessarily have all the answers and our relationship isn't always perfect, but we are doing our best to live out Paul's words to Timothy: " Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity."

4. When the Date's Over, Go Home - I would be lying to you if I said that we were always great at keeping boundaries.  The truth is: we're human and we sometimes tiptoe right up to the line (Ha good thing the stakes are low, right?).  It's dangerous when we have a great date and then end up in a parking lot or outside one of our houses for an hour afterwards.  Talk about temptation!  We've been learning not to put ourselves in situations where our actions are not worth imitating.  This is also where it's great to have accountability and people who will not only ask us about this, but also give us a metaphorical slap on the hand if it continues to be an issue.

5. Be in Community Together - Pretty self-explanatory.  This is one of the things we are growing in the most.  Around February, we really felt the lack.  Since then, we've disciplined ourselves to spend time together, with friends.  We got intentional with our calendar and began to plan so that we either joined in on events already happening with people in our community or brought people together to hang out on certain nights of the week.  I feel like this has enriched our relationship a lot, even just to have some added accountability.  Learning how to be a couple and honor all the people in the room has been really good for us.

6. Resolve Conflict Well - We're not really the yell and scream types, but there have been times in the past year that we have annoyed each other, been frustrated, or one of us has offended the other.  It's been really important for us to learn how to handle conflict in a healthy way.  We've been learning to figure out the root of problems, talk things through before they become a big deal, and hear the other person out.  Something that's also been really key for us is making practical action plans, based on what we've learned through a particular conflict or difficult conversation.  You might know this as going around the leaning circle (kairos).  This helps us learn and then move on, should we find ourselves in conflict again over the same issue.

7. Stay Friends - At this point, we've been friends longer than we've been dating.  One of the reasons our dating life got off to such a slow start was that we didn't want to ruin a perfectly good friendship.  Call it soul mates, kindred spirits, BFFL, or whatever you want, but it ultimately comes down to healthy friendship.  In many ways, the foundation of the relationship we have today was intact even before we started dating.  Through deepening friendship, I got to learn about everything Taylor was passionate about, his goals in life, see him in stressful situations, etc.  To be honest, the 'romantic' part of our relationship isn't completely satisfying all the time... That's where our friendship comes in.  We understand each other, are comfortable, and trust deeply.  So, so thankful for friendship!

Didn't realize this post would turn into such a long one!  Congratulations if you made it all the way through!    Long story short, Taylor and my first year together has been dynamic and amazing.  We've learned a lot, wrestled with some things, and fallen way deeply in love.  Taylor is an amazing friend, lover of life, and pursuer of Jesus, and I am honored to get to be his girl!

Let's Get Messy

Oikos is a fancy greek word for extended family and, as I've come to see it, Church as it was made to be.  It's one of those things that I never really realized I needed until I started experiencing it.  The only way I can really describe it is organic and messy and wonderful. This idea of building the Body out of extended families resonates incredibly deeply with me.

I really like my church, but probably would have left it awhile ago if it hadn't been for my friends Kelsi and Chris Ozorio.  In the world's eyes, they are probably nothing spectacular, but in my eyes, they are like family to me.  Over the past few years, we have celebrated birthdays together, they have mentored me, and encouraged and challenged Taylor and me in our relationship.  We laugh, we cry, I babysit their kid.  You know, family stuff.  My relationship with them makes me feel connected and cared for, like I truly am a part of something much bigger than myself.  I know that they care about me and would (and actually have) come to my aid at the drop of a hat!

I would bet my measly bank account that this kind of connection to people and God couldn't happen in a book study or even a well executed program targeted at people ages 18-29.

I feel like a lot of churches aspire to Acts 2 life - everyone sharing what they have, needs being met, God showing up, people being added daily, devotion to teaching and learning how to be like Jesus...

Since being ruined for the church last year, I've heard so many interpretations of Acts 2 that it is almost dizzying.  To me, it's pretty simple.  Acts 2 Church is about family.  It is messy. It is small enough to care, but large enough to dare.  It is effective because families take care of each other.  Families hang out at home, not in classrooms, around a table.  Families share their stuff because they are close enough to know the depth of each other's need.  Families who care, dare, and everything in between, are attractive - picture the friend's house you always wanted to play at when you were a kid.  They were the people who invited you to stay for dinner and let you ride with them to soccer practice; they included you in their regular rhythm of life.

If the church wants to stay alive, thrive even, we've got to get messy and organic about things.  We've got to be family, to move our focus beyond Sunday services and weekly programs that hopefully draw people in and help them feel cared for to equipping and encouraging people to be good news everywhere they go.  If we can do this well and become a network of extended families on mission together, we really can reach everyone we intend to.   If we can get a handle on this, lack of facilities becomes a nonissue, visitors who feel welcomed, but not included become a virtually extinct problem of the past.  The idea of the Church functioning like Oikos just seems much more natural, like we're coming back to who we were made to be, you know?

So let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be.

I've only barely covered some principles of the Church as extended family.  For more reading on Oikos, click HERE.  For some practicals and testimony about putting Oikos into action, click HERE.

Please know that this post is not a complete thought!  Right now, I'm in the middle of a conversation (by email at the moment) with the lead pastor at my church about the purpose of the organized church vs. where the more organic expression Acts 2 comes in and how we need both.  I'm learning a lot!  I'll be publishing a followup post soon with some of the things that I am learning and how these two expressions of church can work together.  Stay tuned!