THE HERD
I will preface this post by saying it’s a little longer than my typical blog posts 😂, but I promise it’s worth the read.
Making friends in childhood is pretty easy. It’s mostly based on proximity and common interests. You become friends with the kids you go to school with, play sports with and are neighbors with.
This trend continues through middle and high school. It even continues into college and the workforce. Most of the time your friend group is created through your daily activities; the classes you take in college or the dorm you live in. You become friends with the people you work with and they become the people you go to happy hour with and watch the game with on the weekends.
This is how I always made friendships and thought it would continue that way into motherhood. BOY WAS I WRONG. No one warns you about how isolating and lonely motherhood can be. Hopefully you have a supportive spouse and family around, which eases some of the daily routine but it doesn’t replace deep rooted community.
We moved to Colorado three months after Jack was born…….and we knew no one. It was a REALLY difficult season in my life. Sean was extremely ill during the first year we lived here, I was exclusively pumping for Jack and we didn’t have any friends or family nearby.
Over the next few years, I tried lots of different groups. I tried mom’s groups through churches, stroller walking clubs, exercise groups, library meetups, you name it, I tried it. Through those groups, I met a few women that I considered “mom friends”. Women that I could go to playdates with and chat with about feeding schedules and potty training, but I still didn’t feel like I had that deep community I was longing for.
Then….COVID. When the world went into lockdown in March 2020, I had a 4 year old and a 3 month old and it was lonely. I know that so many of you can relate.
In September of 2020, our church offered a MOPS group on Thursday nights. In a desperate desire to just get out of the house by myself for a few hours, I signed up. I knew several of the ladies who were in charge from various church functions and was asked to be a table leader. I didn’t know what that really entailed, but I said yes. In the weeks and days leading up to that first meeting I prayed, truly cried out to the Lord, that I would find true, deep community through this group, but if I’m honest, I didn’t really believe in my prayer. I didn’t think that really existed anymore, outside of childhood.
At that first meeting there were 5 ladies, including myself and a mentor mom at our table. I remember sitting at that first meeting and feeling like I could finally exhale. We joke and say that we all connected so well because we “trauma-bonded” over having small children during a worldwide pandemic and lockdown, but really it was the Lord giving us the desires of our heart….community.
I could tell story after story of God’s faithfulness during that first year of MOPS together. God saw a deep desire for a group of moms to be accepted as they are, to let down the walls and really be seen and He was SO faithful.
We continued with MOPS for the next 2 years, adding new women to our table each year and the Lord has developed such a RICH and DEEP community from that little table of 5 mamas.
In Jennie Allen’s book, “Find Your People: Building Deep Community in a Lonely World,” she talks about the idea of a village. She shares that in 80% of the world, people still live in small communities - villages if you will. They rely on each other for everything. The village is comprised of teachers, medical workers, pastors, mechanics, cooks and more. The village as a whole relies on itself for survival. But within that village, they also have their circle. The 3-5 people closest, either in proximity or relationship, that do day-to-day life together. Here in the West, we have created isolated lives. It’s almost considered a weakness to “rely” on other people.
BUT THAT’S NOT HOW GOD INTENDED US TO LIVE.
Jennie Allen writes, “God’s idea of community is deep, intentional, day-in and day-out connection, loving at all times, bearing with one another, sticking closer than siblings, naming every sin, running our races together, encouraging each other as long as it is called today!”
In Lead Small, the author is describing what community looked like in the early church. He says,” The earliest churches had no buildings. No choir rooms. No praise band. There were no kids’ programs. No Sunday school classes. No fall festivals. There was simply community. Genuine, pure, tight-knit, nothing-to-hide, kill-my-best-goat-for-you kind of community.” I love that description of community so much. It’s giving out of the truest and deepest places. Seeing others and being seen by others on the most basic and deepest levels.
After 3 years together in MOPS, after alot of prayer, we decided to break off and develop a group that would meet the needs of mom’s in our community in a different way. We absolutely loved our time in MOPS and it served a beautiful purpose for a difficult season, but we had outgrown it. When you have outgrown a program or group in your life, it’s OK to pivot. It’s OK to do something different. I think as women, we often stay in things that no longer serve us out of loyalty, but that isn’t always the healthiest choice.
Taking that leap of faith has been the most beautiful choice we could have ever made, and thus THE HERD was born.
A herd is typically a group of animals that live, feed and migrate together. Elephant herds are made up of the mother elephants and their babies. When the males are between the ages of 7 and 12 they will move on to a new herd, but mother elephants remain in their herd for life. They are fiercely protective of each other, even forming circles and kicking up dust when a fellow mother gives birth to protect their friend from predators.
Another study out of England from Northhampton University, tested this idea of “friendship” among cows. They tested this by monitoring the heart rates and cortisol levels of cattle when they were isolated in a pen by themselves, placed in a pen with another cow that they didn’t know and placed in a pen with a cow from their herd. It turns out the stress levels (heart rate and cortisol levels) of the cattle that were in a pen with other cattle from their herd, were significantly lower than in the other instances.
From animals to humans, God uniquely and divinely created us for community.
The short answer is that we reserve Thursday night for The Herd.
Some women come to every Thursday night, others come every other, others come when they can; but everyone knows that if it’s Thursday, there’s a place for them to come and be known.
We’ve created a rhythm for Herd Nights, switching off between game nights, reading through a book together and mom’s night out. All of these things are fun and provide a much needed break, but really, they are just the catalyst for how real community has developed.
We share meals and bring meals.
We rock babies and fold laundry.
We drop off coffee and flowers just to say, “you are seen."
We pick up kids and drop off kids.
We celebrate even the smallest successes. (Your kid slept through the night? PARADE! Your son finally pooped on the potty? STREAMERS, BALLOONS, CONFETTI CANNONS!)
We grieve, we pray, we stand in the gap.
Because at the end of the day, the village doesn’t just get together once a week. The village LIVES together and it does LIFE together, not just on the days worth celebrating, but also on the mediocre days and on the really hard days.
Each semester, we read through some type of book or study. You can find the books we’ve read through below and I will continue to add to it as a reference for you.
On Thursdays when we have a book night, we always eat a meal together. In Holy Hygge, Jamie Erickson writes, “Jesus bookended His ministry here on earth with meals, perhaps because He knew discipleship happens around a table. Vulnerability happens around a table. Accountability happens around a table. The table holds so much potential.”
Eating together is a chance for everyone to come in, take off their coats and breath a collective sigh of relief. We don’t do big fancy meals, but we do usually have a theme for the night and everyone brings something that goes with it. “Build Your Own” or “Bar” themes work really well because everyone is able to bring a little something to go with it and no one has to make everything!
Here’s the themes we’ve done:
Baked Potato Bar
Breakfast for Dinner
Build Your Own Pasta Bowl
Build Your Own Salad
Build Your Own Waffle Bar
Chili Bar
Fall Themed Food
Make Your Own Pizza
Nacho Bar
Salad and Sliders
Soup and Salad
Super Bowl Food
Sweet and Savory Pies
Tailgate Food
My greatest prayer is that this blog post would be an encouragement to you. Try a new group. If you don’t connect, try a different group. If you feel “stuck” where you are, be brave, branch out and create your own herd.
I’ll leave you with this from Jennie Allen in Find Your People, “To be fully loved requires bind fully known. only when we let down our guards and allow ourselves to be known can we get over ourselves and get on with loving people. Love changes us and changes others. Love takes strangers and makes families.”