The One Thing a Community Cannot Do Without

Is that really a community or something else?

"Community" is everywhere right now. And it has become a word we use without discretion.

There are groups for every stage of your life and your business, every stage of your marriage and your child's milestones. You can find circles for personal and professional development, networking and hobbies, too. We've started calling all of it "community," when most of it is actually a membership or a network, and I think it's important to make the distinction.

I was able to name the distinction recently when I heard Dr. Lisa Harper preach on the "one another" instructions woven all through the New Testament. Love one another. Encourage one another. Forgive one another. Carry one another's burdens. The phrase shows up 59 times and serves as instruction for anyone who wants to live in real relationship with other people.

This instruction isn't just in the Bible. The African philosophy, Ubuntu, says it as "I am because we are." Buddhism holds up the sangha, the community itself, as one of its three treasures. The Stoics had a word, sympatheia, for the idea that all of us are threads in one connected whole. And Brené Brown's research keeps landing in the same place, that we are wired for belonging and connection is a need, not a nice-to-have. While these instructions were given in different centuries, different continents, and different customs and ways of life, the same instruction lives underneath all of it. Take care of “one another.”

A network exists for reach. You're there for the referrals, the introductions, the room full of people who might one day send business your way. That's good. That's what it's for. A membership exists for a benefit. You pay, you get access, you get the perk or the classes or the content. Also good. Also exactly what it's for. And if you notice, both of those answer the very same question. What can I get out of this? That is not a criticism, simply the honest transaction at the center of a membership and a network, and there is nothing wrong with it.

And any of these can become a community. I have seen it happen in networking groups, in gyms, in paid rooms of every kind. But it was never the thing being sold. It grew because the people inside it started answering a different question than the one they came in with.

A community answers a completely different question. Not what can I get, but what can I bring.

For over eleven years in the BOOST community, I have watched women live that out. They get the planning workshops, the strategy sessions, the masterminds, the accountability, the co-working. All of that is real and all of it is valuable, and none of it is what makes BOOST what it is. Those things are the container. The "one another" is the heartbeat. The ones who thrive here are not the ones auditing what they get for their money. They are the ones who walked in ready to give.

I have seen a woman say out loud in her first week as a member that she needed a home for herself and her two daughters as she experienced divorce, and she had one within 72 hours, because a realtor in our community heard her and moved. I have seen more than a dozen women show up to a member's father's funeral Mass, most of whom had never met the man, because they knew her and that was enough. I have watched members quietly remake a widow's bedroom so she would not have to walk back into the room the way she left it.

Not one of those women was assigned. Nobody was following a program or checking a box. They showed up because that is what the space inspires you to do. You cannot buy that. It is not a tier or a perk in the welcome packet. It is what grows when a group of people has practiced showing up for "one another" before the crisis or the victory or the obstacle or the launch.

So before you call the next thing a community, let's get clear.

Some of it is the messaging. Groups get sold as community when what is actually being offered is a membership or a network, and people walk in expecting one thing and receive another. That is misleading and it deserves to be named.

If you are the leader, the responsibility to name it correctly is yours. Do not borrow the warmer word because it sells better. Say what this is, and then demonstrate it, because people learn what a space is by watching how the person leading it behaves. A community is always a reflection of its leader.

If you are the member, sometimes you were looking for community and you bought a membership. The thing delivered exactly what it promised, and you were disappointed anyway, because you came hoping for something that was never on the shelf. So ask yourself two honest questions. What are you actually looking for? Belonging or a benefit? Both are legitimate. They are just not the same purchase. And how do you plan on showing up once you are there? Will you bring anything nobody asked you for?

If what you truly want is community, the way in is simple. Quit asking what you'll get, and go be the "one another" for somebody. Carry the burden, send the note, show up to the thing. That is all it has ever taken.