What are the people in your community like?

If you were to look around the room during a service, you would see a group of individuals who come from all stages of understanding, all different life situations and all levels of experience with a relationship with God. Actually, if all you did was to look around the room, you might get the notion that these people are the well adjusted, “got it all together”, ever elusive “normal” people (the kind of normal that is always striven for but never fully attained).

The truth is that they are probably more like you than you think. Most of us come from the latch key or orphaned generation and have experienced any combination of hardship and dysfunction. Including: 1. Poor parental models that made you feel alone – or maybe even abandoned – and that you had to grow up to quickly, 2. Abuse (mental/physical/sexual) but with little resolution, 3. Witnessed many of your “heroes” (public/private) have a “fall” 4. Felt immense pressure to, on your own, live up to expectation that were ridiculously high and often brought on by comments like “follow your heart and you can do anything”. As a result of these experiences, we are often left without a sense of stability, belonging, positive authority, trust and, of course, religion. It has been our experience at the Pool that a large majority of 20 & 30s relate strongly to this description (including most of us). :)