The Power of Conversations to Form Us
Scott Wall
Being part of Commons has filled my memory with unforgettable moments.
There are the high points—like the joy and anticipation of our 10th Anniversary or the candle-lit warmth of each Christmas Eve we share. Then there are the snapshots of baptizing babies, visiting Kalende, and serving thousands of pancakes together. However, over the past couple of years, I’ve experienced what has slowly become my absolute favourite thing about our community.
Conversations.
There might be just one person sitting across from me at a downtown cafe, six or seven people gathered as a Group on a weekday, or dozens turned toward each other in a discussion at a Course about some big idea.
In each of these conversations, something happens as stories are told, laughter and tears are shared, and wisdom emerges at the confluence of keen curiosity and patient listening. I can feel it—and I know many of you feel it, too—that sense that your life is now different because you invested it here.
How about the awareness that you are more whole and healed because you are shaped by so many people who call Commons home? How about the conviction that this way of following Jesus is a safe place for your soul? And I realize that you might read this as sentimental—and I’m okay with that. Guilty as charged.
There’s something more to it, though—something profoundly grounded and rooted in the fullness of lived experience. Take this montage of the conversations I had just last week.
Someone waking up to a change they need to make in a key relationship.
A conversation in a group about how to hold onto faith despite some of the difficulties they’ve experienced.
A chat with colleagues about our shared future that left me more hopeful and less anxious.
And that wasn’t even all of them!
Each encounter impacts me and expresses the kind of formation we aspire to at Commons: one in which each of us is encouraged to grow, expand, and flourish. We have opportunities to learn and adapt while watching the passion and wisdom of others.
If you’re open to the power of conversations to shape you, let me invite you to join the Jesus-Centred Theology Course. On Tuesday nights in November, we’ll gather to reflect on and interrogate the ways we read the Bible. We’ll explore what happens when you use Jesus as a lens for examining some of Scripture’s most difficult themes and images.
I hope we’ll find that we’re shaped and transformed through the perspectives and thoughts of those joining us around the table.
And maybe, just maybe, we’ll form some new memories along the way.
Check out the Jesus-Centred Theology Course here.
