Today is the first official day of Rachel and Madison’s link up as Community Brew and I’m participating again so grab your cup of coffee and I’m drink my diet coke while we chat.

This post is supposed to be about community and that’s something that near and dear to my heart. I talk about it in pretty much every post and I don’t want to repeat myself but I want to participate. I’m going to talk about some of the things I do to build community.

1. Pray for my Friends.

At the beginning of this year, my sunday school teacher encouraged us to develop a prayer routine and showed us her plan for praying for her husband and son. I sought the Lord and found thirty things/people to pray for over the course of 2014. I was good about asking for I can pray for them earlier this year and need to get back to that.

2. Be an Encouragement

I am an encourager, it’s my spiritual gift and it’s something that’s been instilled me because of my mom and who she is. Many times encouragement from me comes in the form of a text, other times is a letter or maybe even a package. I try to be an encouragement to everyone around me.

3. Be Intentional

I learned a while ago that community is not built without being intentional and pursuing people. It is texting someone even when they don’t text you back. Having conversations that are uncomfortable but necessary. It’s getting to someone deeper than where they’re from and what they’re studying. It’s conversations about what is God is doing in their lives but conversations about what show you watch next on Netflix. It’s conversations that happen after months without seeing or talking to each other because you live so far apart but knowing that they will be there for you when you need them the most.

4. Pursue Friendships

I have learned that if I want to continue friendships I have to be the one that reaches out because that’s my personality. I have learned to balance my life and quick to remember that I have a life outside my North Carolina bubble. We are human and can easily get caught up in our little lives and forget that we have relationships outside of the people we are coming into contact with a daily basis. It’s not a bad thing and it’s something that we all do but I am the one who is constantly reaching out to my friends but I know that I’m doing the right thing.

5. Don’t Force It

Community is going to look different for every person and that’s ok, that’s the best part. You have to learn to discern who is going to be your good friend and trust that God is bringing the right people into your life. Sometimes there are people who really want to be good friends with but it just isn’t working out. Drop it, you can still talk to them when you see them but you can’t be best friends with everyone. Look for the unexpected people because you never know who God will bring into your life. There are definitely some people that I would never expected to be friends with that are my closest friends and some people that I wanted to be friends with but it didn’t work out.

How do you build community?