Who needs a comfort zone, anyway?

"Anne, I know what you should do the weekend of your birthday while I'm away," said Gretchen last Sunday evening.
Um.... okay? What?
"There's a young adults ministry at Brooklyn Tab, and they're having their annual retreat that weekend in upstate New York! You should go!"
I have friends coming into town, and I wouldn't want to go by myself....
"Well, if we can't go to the retreat, we should go to the weekly thing-- apparently they're meeting this Friday night."
But your schedule got changed.... you have to work on Fridays now! I don't want to go by myself....
"Ugh, I forgot! I'll see if Matt will switch with me or just work the last couple hours so I can come too."
(So I made a mental note that we were going to go to this Transitions group tonight. Together. But then last night....)
So is Matt covering for you?
"Um.... Well...."
Gretch! I don't want to go by myself!
"Oh come on, you'll be fine!"
It's soooo outside of my comfort zone.
"But you'll meet new people! You'll meet Christians our age that live in the city! You should go!"
It's scary to meet new people all by yourself!
"You'll be fine. And plus, you don't want to be that person that sits home by herself on a Friday night and doesn't have anyone to hang out with."
I never thought I'd hear anyone even suggest that was possible for me.
"I'll think about it."

And think about it I did. All day. I tried to come up with reasons for me not to go, but I also knew that I'd regret not going. And Gretchen was right-- I didn't want to sit at home by myself on a Friday night (ah, the difference of living in a city where you only know about five people). She's right... it'll be good for me to meet people. And worst case scenario, I can always leave. Somehow, having an escape plan always makes things better.

The gathering started at 7, but I definitely didn't want to be there on the early side. Hint: when going to a new place, never get there early. You will just sit around awkwardly and wish that you'd come twenty minutes later. So I left my apartment at 7 and took a leisurely fifteen minutes to walk to the church. Good plan-- if only they had started on time. But in reality, it started at 7:30-- so I still got plenty of "awkward time" in. Yay.

They were meeting in the Brooklyn Tab annex. 180 Livingston Street. Cool, I know where that street is. And the large "180" on the door made it nice and easy to find. I walked in confidently. So far, so good.

"Church?" said the man at the front desk.
I nodded.
"Next building."
Doh.
I walked into the next building behind another woman.
Sweet, she's headed to the same place as me. I don't even have to walk in by myself. Perfect.
"Second floor," said the greeting committee when we walked in.
She seemed pretty flustered about being late, so we didn't really talk as we hurried down the hallway and up the stairs. There was a long table with several volunteers behind it.
"Your name?" they asked the woman in front of me. She gave it to them, they marked a piece of paper, and she disappeared through the double doors.
"Your name?" they said to me.
Anne Davies. But I've never been here before...
"You mean you didn't sign up?"
No, this is my first time.
"Oh... you need to register." And the woman handed me a piece of paper with rather lengthy questionnaire on it.
Um, is this Transitions?
"Transitions?? No, this is Spiritual Formation class! Transitions meets in the basement."
So much for my "off to a good start." And I headed downstairs.

Okay, just find a girl to talk to and you'll be fine. You can do this-- you can make small talk with anyone. You're just being a whimp. You'll be fine. Lord, give me strength.....
And I walked through the doors into the meeting room.
There were lots of girls there-- all deeply engaged in conversation with each other. All the people sitting by themselves looking as awkward as I felt were guys. I am not just going to go sit down next to a guy and make small talk for the next ten minutes.
So I sat by myself and tried not to let on that I felt as awkward as all the other solo-sitters felt. I'm not sure I did such a great job. A few people came up and introduced themselves-- but none of the conversations really went beyond exchanging our names.
So this is what it felt like for people who were new to citycollege&career. I'm sorry I ever got frustrated about greeting new people every week and engaging them in conversation. And then I thought-- It's good to be the new person again, if for no other reason than to remember how important it is to be welcoming when you're not the newbie anymore. Note to self!

After about ten minutes, the projection screen at the front showed a countdown. Only five more minutes of this! I'm gonna make it! Four minutes.... Three minutes.... A girl sat down a couple seats over from me. Do I bother introducing myself? Two minutes.....
Hi, my name's Anne.
"Oh hi! I'm Nicole."
Is this your first time here?
"No. Is it yours?"
Yeah, I just heard about it.
"Do you live in Brooklyn?"
Yep, I live about a ten minute walk from here. How 'bout you?
"I'm from Staten Island. It takes me about an hour and a half to get here."

Suddenly the countdown was over, the music was playing, and I knew someone's name. It really is going to be okay. The gathering was like a laid-back church service. We sang worship songs, saw a video about the retreat, played an ice-breaker (I didn't meet anyone else who has an August 29th birthday), and saw a video about a missions trip they'd just done to the Philippines. After about an hour, Todd (the Transitions pastor) got up and gave a talk on Christian community.

He talked about our need for Christian community-- how we all have a need to know people and be known by people and accepted by them. He talked about cliques and how they aren't necessarily bad in and of themselves but need to be managed and reflective of Jesus' heart to include everyone. "I often sit on the subway," he said, "and think what it would be like to literally have Christ's eyes for these people around me-- to see them not as a business man, or a homeless woman, or a bratty kid; but to see each one as a human being who needs to know Christ." He continued to challenge us: "Why are we scared to leave our comfort zone? Are we afraid of people who are different from us? Why don't we realize that we need people who are different from us to complement us?"

I thought about my comfort zone. I thought about why I didn't want to go to the meeting tonight because it would mean being uncomfortable for a bit. But then I also realized how one of the coolest feelings was sitting in that room knowing that I didn't know a single person, but that we were all there because we love the same God. And the things that make us different-- our interests, our backgrounds, our personalities, the list goes on-- are the things that can make our friendships so amazing, because we are all united on the most important thing: Christ.

So when you look at it like that, who needs a comfort zone, anyway?

(P.S. after it was all over, I got to chat a bit more with Nicole; and we met another girl named Bree who was awesome. Hopefully I'll see them again when I go back in a couple weeks!)