 ‘When I am weak God is strong’
Building community is about investing in current relationships and building new ones.
Even when we are babies we have to learn to get on with others - it's not always easy, and bad experiences affect our attitudes.
It helps if we're curious about people, because talking to people isn't always easy, but every person has their own story. Ask questions, but you have no right to receive an answer. Sometimes have to earn their trust. Has to be give and take, we have to be vulnerable. Takes time.
Keep in touch, persevere, make time. Serve, share your life, sacrifice.
What makes a Christ-centred relationship different? It's the divine nature of love which inspires us, it's who we are that's more important than what we do. Our actions should be fuelled by God's love.
Sue showed various clips from the film Shrek as they illustrate the growth of a friendship. The first clip is when Donkey and Shrek first meet. What's the motivation for their friendship, Donkey needs a friend but Shrek isn't interested to start with. But he's a better person afterwards. Sometimes we need to persevere with friendships.
What are our motivations for our friendships? This will affect how the relationship plays out. Is it a power relationship, does one person protect the other and have power over joint enemies. Is it a relationship we depend on, does it help us escape from something, or helps us avoid facing something (perhaps an issue in our lives).
Are we prepared to scratch beneath the surface of friendships to find the real person. Roman 15 v 7 accept one another as Christ accepted us in order to bring praise to God.
Later in the Shrek film, Shrek talks of being like an onion – many layers. To discover the complexity of a person we have to unwrap their layers, another illustration is like a Russian doll. We start as normal people but we put on layers to protect ourselves (onion layers or bigger doll layers), we have to unwrap the layers to get back to the real person inside.
We are made in God's image and God is love. Scary! It should be very clear as we walk around that we are God's people. Cor 13 v 4-13 love should be pouring out of us.
The human love we experience in our lives affects how we accept God's love. Bad experiences make it hard for people to believe that God is good and to accept his love.
Shrek says that people judge him without getting to know him. People around us may feel that the world (ie other people) judges them before even getting to know them. We feel that sometimes too. Donkey asks Shrek who he's keeping out and he replies ‘everybody’. Not that we should all become therapists but it can be hard work trying to show someone that they don't need to stay withdrawn, they are liked for who they are.
Luke 6 v 36 be compassionate as the father is compassionate. Don't be rejected when someone takes out their hurt on you.
John 4 v 7-42 the Samaritan woman. Jesus treated different people differently. He could say things into peoples lives because he is divine love. We can't necessarily do the same in the same way. Show love, trust, respect, understanding, like Jesus did. Our words should be in love not judgement.
Four building blocks in any relationship:
Love (the most enduring)
Trust (the most fragile)
Respect/Honour (the most neglected)
Understanding (takes the longest)
Shrek & Donkey find that telling the truth, sorting out each others problems and being in relationship is better than living alone.
Love the lord your God with all your soul and all your heart and all your mind. Love your neighbour as yourself. We need to truly accept God's love for ourselves and show it to others.
Humans have been created to need love but we try to fill the God shaped hole with other things.
Once our focus on God is right we get a more realistic expectation of the relationships around us. We're not expecting other people to make us who we should be, because we're letting God do that.
Question:
What difference does God's love of you make in your life and in your relationships. Chat this through with somebody. | 
