Cultivating Community

If you're here joining me for the first time, welcome. I'm glad you're here. You are either watching me on YouTube or Facebook, and if you happened here and you don't know how you got here, why don't you plan to stay a while? Make sure you subscribe on YouTube or follow me on Facebook and make sure your notifications are turned on. So that way, whenever I release a video or when I happen to go live, cuz randomly I do that every now and again, you'll know. I want to talk to you today about deepening connection because connection matters. We're human beings and it matters for you to be connected and connected well. I want you to know that this video first got recorded as a part of a live that I did. There has been almost an hour of fun and foolery prior to me buttoning up, straightening up, and flying right. If you'd like to know more about joining the group of women who see me every Monday morning, all you need to do is go to chrystallevanshurst.com/theinnercircle to learn more about it. The reason why the Inner Circle exists is because we really do believe that we girls are better together. See my shirt? Advertising that today. We do believe that. And while you can be better together with the women that you know in real life, and I hope you know women in real life that you can be better together with. I also realize that sometimes you need a little bit extra. And there are women who have asked me many times in different ways and for different reasons to give them more, more content from me, more courses to help them grow, more of an opportunity to connect with other women who think like they do and who want to live life well. That's what the Inner Circle is. There are courses. Community connection, encouragement, coaching, and mentoring for the woman who loves God, but who wants to keep it real in her everyday life. We offer that form of connection also because so many women tell us that they don't have this connection in their real life. But today's video, today's instruction, today's teaching is where I wanna talk to you about why you need it in your real life, why you need to cultivate it in your real life, and why if you don't have it in your real life, you need to make sure you do the work to create it. You are a human being, which means you were created to be with other people. Even God himself, when he created human beings, said, "Let us make man and woman in our image." We are having such a good time enjoying community between Father God, Father the Son, and Father the Spirit. We want people on earth to enjoy what we have. And then he said, "It's not good for man to be alone." We were not created— we know man has been created to enjoy God, but we want God We want man to enjoy the company of another human being. So that was, of course, male and female. But in Titus chapter 2, the Bible tells us that the women ought to teach the women. The older women teach the younger women. And that means older in age, but it also means older in season. What have you experienced? What have you learned? What are you learning? How can we learn together? This idea that two are good, but three are better. When we're in community, good things happen. Here's the problem. Relationship can be hard. Community can be challenging. Connection can be difficult. Vulnerability isn't always fun, neither is intimacy when someone has hurt you. And I know women can be messy. I know, I know. I've had my own taste of that. What I can tell you is if you allow the bad relationships in your life, the friendships that stabbed you in the back, the girls that talked about you, the people that ostracized you to teach you about relationship and about connection, and you decide it's not worth it, you're missing out on life's greatest gifts. I know that there are many people who say they want connection. They want to know people. They wanna be known. They want someone to show up for them when they're sick or to have someone that they can call when they need to cry or to talk about what happened at work. And you want that person to be someone you can actually go to lunch with, someone you can actually have come over, someone that maybe actually lives in your neighborhood or goes to your church. And you just struggle with how to make that happen. There are so many reasons why people struggle with connection. Maybe it is past connectivity trauma, or maybe it's that you feel like I don't have time? When am I supposed to meet this person for coffee or have that Zoom call or show up and have that relationship in person? When am I supposed to have the time to join that small group or join that book club? I get it. Time is a whole thing. Maybe it's energy. Maybe you want connection, but maybe you're not an— a high-energy people person. Like, being around people drains you. And so because you're an introvert, you don't cultivate relationship at all. Well, You're cheating yourself. If it's not time and it's not energy and it's not past trauma or trust, maybe it's just that you don't understand the importance of connectivity. And that's why I want to teach you this today. You were designed for connectivity. Now you can get it in a whole bunch of ways. You can have connectivity with your sister, with your mama, with your girlfriend from high school, with your friend from college. That's great. But what I wanna tell you is that when you consistently decide to connect with other people, for them to know what's happening in your real life and to let them in on you, to be intentional about that. Whether you do that over a Bible study or you do that over a book club, or you do that over a dinner club, or you do that because the women in the PTA that you are seeing every month anyway, your kids are in the same class, y'all decide to, to do something together, or maybe it's your running group and you see them every morning almost, and you see them for running, but you have no idea what's happening in their lives. Or you pass that woman across the that's walking in your neighborhood, but you can never remember her name. Or maybe it's the women that you work with. You see them more than you see your family, but yet you have no idea what's really happening in their lives because you never do anything beyond that. The women that you run into, the people that you run into already, if you're not choosing to be intentional or to develop a group of people to be intentional with, you are missing out. But I know that it's work. I know you have to be intentional. And you don't realize that that connectivity is something that you need or deeply want until you need it or want it. And then you pray to God that there are people in your life that you have not poured into, or that have not poured into you, that just see you and have compassion. That's why living and loving Jesus is so important, because we are able to see people who may not have people and we can be their people for a season. But you don't have to wait on that time to come for you to be thinking about who you want to celebrate with major moments in your life and not having to look at a blank paper because you haven't talked to them in 5 years. So I want to talk to you about connectivity because it is scientifically and spiritually a necessity to living a long, happy life. A lady I know passed away recently, uh, my sister and I, my sister knew her better than I did. Uh, we were talking about This woman as a speaker, how she spoke to thousands and thousands and thousands of people. She's a speaker, wrote books, people loved her, but at the end of her life, who were there? Her real people, like not the people who knew her or met her or went to one of her talks. It was her family and her circle. We have the Sister Circle. The Inner Circle is the paid membership. The Sister Circle is this idea. That's why we have an Instagram for it. That's why the podcast is named The Sister Circle, because I believe that the sister circle is anyone who acknowledges that we are really better together, whether you're a guy or a girl. This idea that you need to be intentional about your circle. When I'm talking about connectivity, I'm talking about your circle. Who's in your circle? Who knows your name, knows your phone number, and knows to come get you when they haven't seen you in a while. And I really believe that a lot of what we do inside of the inner circle And even sometimes outside of that is teaching you how to cultivate your circle. Cuz you were designed for connectivity. There's a Stanford, uh, social study on science.org and it talks about the lack of social connection. And that is a greater detriment. Now this is a science article. It's a greater detriment to your health than obesity, smoking, and high blood pressure. Lack of connectivity is not physically good for you. Of course, we know that people talk about happiness, and when— if you Google what makes people happy, right, you're going to run into a bunch of articles that tell you happiness comes from good relationships. Good relationships is a big part of happiness. So if you don't have your people, it's okay. Don't stress about it. It just means you need to be intentional about creating your circle. Your circle doesn't have to be 25 people. You know, Jesus had 12 and he only took 3 people on the mountain with him. You don't have to have a ton. And if you're waiting on the circle to come to you, what if you're the person who's supposed to draw the circle and invite other people in? Spiritually, it's true. Proverbs 17, a friend loves at all times a brother, a real brother, a real person in your circle, a sister. They're born for adversity. When hard times come, that's what they're there for. Proverbs 27, iron sharpening iron. So does one friend sharpen another. You need a circle so that your people can spur you on for the things you say you wanna do that you never do, that they show up and remind you of what you said you were gonna do. Matthew 18, for where there are two or three gathered in my name, I'm with them. There are things that are gonna happen in your life only because you develop and cultivate a circle of connection and friendship. So I know that I'm giving you the why, and I know I'm giving you the why it's important,, but I wanna give you the how. I know for me, um, there was a season where one of my best friends, I had to put time with her on the calendar because I was just like, I'm feeling like I'm missing connectivity, but I have people. I just, life was busy and I needed to be intentional about cultivating time to talk and catch up. Um, I know my mom's siblings, um, in the last few years, they have a weekly call on Wednesday mornings where they just talk so that they know what's going on with each other. I know that during the holidays, there's a group of friends, we call ourselves the tribe. Somebody's gonna gather together, whether we go out or go to someone's home, whether it's a Friendsgiving or whether we meet somewhere for good food, we're gonna get together and see each other. I, I know that community and developing it You have to make room for it. I know that. And I know that it's not always easy, but what I wanna tell you is neither is paying your rent, but you do it because you know what happens if you don't make that mortgage payment. And I'm telling you that the cost of no connectivity, connectivity is too high of a cost for you to pay. The problem is we just don't feel that monthly, but you'll feel that decades later in your life. What you pour into now is what you will reap from later. So how do you do it? In a recent podcast, I talked to Jess and Amy, who are friends. They decided to be friends after they realized they shared like interests. It was episode 373 if you want to check it out. But she said, we have made— and then she's talking about her relationship with Jamie, uh, Amy rather. Jess said about Amy, we have made an active choice to choose our friendship over our success. They met because they had projects that they were both working on. They had a similar interest and a similar passion, and they decided to choose friendship over getting the thing done. They started because they had a like interest, and then they decided to prioritize time together, whether it was about the interest or not. Connection will require effort. You will have to choose to make time for it. You will have to look at your life and say, what am I going to do? Am I gonna start a Bible study? Am I gonna start a book club? Am I gonna invite the women that I've been running with to come into my house after for some morning coffee, or for us to meet on Saturday morning when we're not walking to enjoy some tea or coffee together. You're going to have to stay after, uh, choir rehearsal and ask 2 or 3 friends to go to Starbucks if there's one open near you, just to hang out for an hour before they close. You're going to have to get up earlier in the morning, as I often do, and meet friends at 5 AM at Starbucks, 6 AM at the Waffle House, 7 AM at Panera. Because if I'm gonna make time for you, I can't do that during the day when I'm I'm still homeschooling my kids. I still work at home and I school at home. And during the day is not the best time for me. You're gonna have to make the effort. But what I'm here to tell you is that the effort is worth it. You have to be the leader. If you want it and don't have it, then maybe you have to send the invitation. And if you invite 12 and 1 comes, that's fine. Do for one what you wish you could do for more, Andy Stanley says. Whatever you need, maybe the need in you is to create it. People walk up to me all the time and say, Chrystal, you should do this, and Chrystal, you should do that because women really need it. And if you did it, it would be so great. And I'm like, but what if the hard need that you feel in your heart is because you are supposed to do it? What if you're like, well, people, I just can't find people. There's people don't, they don't like the same things I like, or they don't have the same schedules I have. Well, maybe there are people who are like you. Who aren't available during the day, or maybe there are people like you who are willing to get up early in the morning, or maybe there are people like you who love to sew or love to scrapbook or love to run or love to walk. Or maybe there are people like you who are in school and maybe together is we're gonna spend 30 minutes giving our updates for the week in a Zoom call. And then maybe the next hour and a half, 2 hours, we study together. What if there are people like you and they're just waiting on someone like you to start things off. You may have to host, you may have to reach out, you may have to send the text, you may have to make the phone call. Think about the people you already see. Jenny Allen's new book, Find Your People, talks about this. She's saying you don't have to cross town to figure this out. You need to look at where you already are. And if you are a people person and you have your people, maybe you're supposed to get something else started. I love to connect people.. And I have multiple friend groups right now that I can think of that they have a friend group because I did something during the summer. I did a 6-week Bible study or a 6-week book club, invited them over, saw them connect, gave them the opportunity to connect. And after that was over, because I'm not called to do that all year long, they kept meeting. When your church keeps saying, we need people to host small groups, maybe they're talking to you. Maybe God is talking to you. Look at where you're standing. Where do your feet trod? And think about who else is where you are. Be the host. Make the call, send the text, make the connection, reach out and do something that is an overflow of you. As my mother would say, you don't have to do what other people are doing. If you, if you don't want to study the Bible, lead a Bible study, don't. Meet at the park and go for a walk and afterwards go for coffee and sit and talk. But look at where you're already standing. Where are you standing? And know that what will happen is one day, one day there will come a time when the people that have poured into you and the people you have poured into will be what matters most. Relationship, your family, of course, first. But people who are in your circle of life. And it doesn't matter if you're 22 or 72. There is a friend of mine, her name is Johanna Fisher. I wanted to have her to my home. She's 80 years old almost. She has a group of women who she's mentored for 30 years. One of them 30 years ago said, can you mentor me? And she said, yes. And then she said, can I bring a friend? And that friend brought a friend. And now there are like 8 of them. And I know them all. And I wanted to have Aunt Jo, as I call her, over for dinner. And then I realized I wanted to have 2 or 3 of them over too. So then I decided to have them all over and I got a chance to sit with them and listen to them talk about their relationship and see how they loved each other like sisters and called her mom. But it all started because one girl said, can I spend some time with you? And then she invited another friend or 2.. And here, 30 years later, I got to witness the beauty of real life connection. They've been at each other's weddings. They've been at each other's side when they've had babies or buried loved ones, and they're connected for life. Some connections are lifelong. Some connections are for a season, but it doesn't matter which connection you find yourself in. Connection matters. If you find yourself without connection, that's why the Inner Circle exists. But even if you're in the inner circle, girls, don't settle for virtual relationship. The screen is wonderful and it has introduced me honestly to some of my best friends. I have a lot of virtual friendships that have turned into in real life, but in real life, they need to see you, look at you, know all of your nonverbals, be able to reach out and touch your hand when you cry. They need to know where you live. So when someone passes away, they can drop off paper goods at your front doorstep, cuz they just know. They need to be there. Like my sweet friend was for me when I was in the hospital and I was about to go back for a surgical procedure and she rubbed my forehead and rubbed the top of my head and said, I love you, Chrystal Hurst. You're gonna be okay. If you have connection, And what I'm talking about, you already have. Why don't you be a starter, like a fire starter, like a match, and start it for someone else? What if someone that comes to your Bible study really should start their own? What if there are women who come to you for mentoring and they really need to start a friend group? What if you need to seed a group? What if you need to mentor some women that you see that if you put them all in the same room to learn from you, they would learn to stick together? Y'all, we're better together. I believe that with all of my heart. I've been gathering women together all of my life. I was a peacemaker on the playground when I was in the second grade. I gathered together some girls who wanted to study the Bible in junior high. In college, I had women come over for a book club. When I was having babies and I was young, we started a friendship circle online back when Yahoo groups were a thing. Thing. Then at my church, I created an event where women at our church, because our church is so big, could get to know each other. And here I am, Sister Circle for everyone, Inner Circle for some, still doing the same thing. I believe in connection, and I believe in it because I've seen it over and over again change a life, fit a need, fill a hole. And I believe it can do the same for you. If you know what I'm talking about, then give the gift of connection to someone else. Talk about it, encourage it, seed it, and know that it's not just good for your loneliness, but it's good for your heart, your soul, your body. You are a spiritual being. You were created for it and your body craves it. If you're watching this video right now, you may or may not know that the video right before this, or the podcast right before this, talked about cuffing season. And y'all, it's the season when People are looking for somebody to do the thing with, cuddle up with, not be alone with. For real, it's a whole thing. It's always been a thing. It's just, you know, had different names. If you're in your 60s, 50s, 70s, it was just shacking for a season, right? A little something something for a little while. But the reason why people are doing that is because They want connection. For every good thing God has given us or instructed us to do, there is an alter ego version of it. There is a version of it that is an incorrect, bad for you substitute. And anything that's not real, that's not deep, and that's not committed, it's gonna hurt you more than it helps you. You don't need to be cuffed. You need to be connected. You need real community. You need real friendship. You need to be able to say what you need to say the way you need to say it and still be loved. I was talking to my friend Shelly the other day and I said something to her and it was a little harsh. I meant what I said. I said what I meant. And then I came back and said, I hope that's not too harsh. I hope you know what I mean. It wasn't even about her. It was just something I needed to say. And she said, girl, I know you. No judgment, all love. I understand. To be free to say what you need to say, to feel how you need to feel, to do what you need to do, and know that there's a safe place that you can be naked and unashamed and people will still come after you. I want that for you deeply. I wish I could make it happen for everybody. The Inner Circle attempts at some level to fill that hole, fill that gap, to connect women. I love seeing when Inner Circle girls realize they're in the same city and they meet up. I love that. One of these days I'll start joining you at your meetups, your Sister Circle meetups. That'll be fun. But until that happens, or while you wait, you be what you need. Or you create the space for other women who need it too. The lasting legacy of your life will be the people who you gave you to. And yes, to that being your spouse and your children and your sisters and your cousins. Absolutely. But we're better together. Women were designed to tell and teach other women. People were designed to share and teach and, and connect with other people. You were never designed to have to figure out life all by yourself. Yourself. And if connection together helps you to do life or win at life, I'm here for it. But here's what I want to know from you. Why is connection hard for you? Is it hard for you? Real deep connection. And what are you going to do about it? Your body will thank you. Your soul will thank you. Your mind will thank you. Your life will thank you. And the sisters or brothers that you decide to form intentional connection with, they will thank you too. So here's to more connection, the connection of human being, like not doing, but just being yourself, learning to learn, love, and lose in safe places, and knowing what it is to build legacy that can only be connected in the long run. With people you decide to be real with. I hope this has helped you. If you found your way here, be sure you're subscribed, followed, and making sure you have notifications on will keep you winning every time. I would love to hear from you in the comments, cuz I want you to find even connection here. Sometimes you never know. All right, y'all, glory, glory, and I'll see you next week.