Who We Are: Growth

We at the Canby House established four community values a few months ago to try to define what we are about.  These were growth, collaboration, hospitality, and community relevance.  I want to write a bit about the first one today and hopefully some others will give their perspectives on the next three.  But today you get Luke on growth.

Growth is difficult to measure or even perceive, perhaps most of all due to the fact that we rarely see it while we are in the midst of it.  It is only when we look back months, sometimes years later that we see how far we have come.  Furthermore, as I have found to personally be true, the best and biggest growth (if quality judgments may be applied to a concept as personal and specific as growth) often takes place in the hardest times of life.

In an internship application that I filled out not too long ago, I was asked to describe the “factors (home, church, school, etc) that have helped or hindered your growth as a person.”  As I reflected on the question, I found that it needed some reframing before I could respond.  Growth takes place in all situations—sometimes more quickly, sometimes more slowly, but it is there.  Rather than growth truly being hindered, it is only modified by difficult situations and may shoot off  in directions that we do not expect.

So, in my perception, to declare that growth is a community value is to affirm, that we are involved in a constant process of change to become more and more who we were created to be and to encourage that process in one another.  The seven of us here are all in different stages of life: a few are just our of college, one is in college, a few have been out for some time; some of us are in “transitional” jobs, some are actually employed in something that fits their life goals; but it is probably safe to say that we are all experiencing some degree of uncertainty about our place in the world and how we should go about living life.  Growth in community is about exploring these puzzles together.   We join together to help one other ask the difficult questions, explore the various answers, work through the tough times, celebrate the good, and most of all connect on a deep level with each other and with our maker so that each day we come to resemble him more.

Life in community hasn’t been easy.  I’ve had to let go of my desires and expectations for the sake of “being who we are” instead of who I want us to be.  But while we most certainly “are who we are,” growth requires that we constantly and simultaneously ask the question, “who do we want to become?”  But that is a question for another day and another post.