Which is it?

Which is it? Are you part of a community or part of the audience? Read a link from my brother-in-law's blog that talks about the difference between a community and an audience from a business perspective, but it got me thinking about it from a relational view. I think we confuse the two a lot of the times. Think about these two different ways to approach a friendship. We respond to an invitation to join a friend in doing something, we read a blog to see what they are thinking, we talk to them when we run into them at church and maybe we talk with other people about how great a friendship we have with that person. The flip side is we call to see how they are doing, we invite them to do something with us, we make it a point to talk to them and listen to what is going on in their lives, we find ways to invest in them. One is passive as we wait for it to come to us, the other takes action on our part. One can be selfish at times, the other is usually selfless. Are we an audience to the people around us or are we part of a community? One requires very little of us - little time, little energy, little emotional investment as we wait as part of the audience. The other will take intentional effort, can be hard, will involve us putting others in front of ourselves. An audience is easy; a community requires effort, but which would you rather be a part of? The audience leaves once the show is over. A community gathers around you. So what are choosing to be in the lives of your friends - part of the audience or part of their community? It is a choice you make each day.