Togetherness

The Bible teaches us that it is not good for us to be alone, we need others. Researchers now know that we are wired to be with and interact with others.

Our culture teaches us to focus on personal uniqueness, but at a deeper level we barely exist as individual organisms. Our brains are built to help us function as members of a tribe. We are part of that tribe even when we are by ourselves, whether listening to music (that other people created), watching a basketball game on television (our own muscles tensing as the players run and jump), or preparing a spreadsheet for a sales meeting (anticipating the boss’s reactions). Most of our energy is devoted to connecting with others.

The church and small groups can learn something from a Swedish tradition called Fika. Pronounced “fee-kah,” the Swedish culture of breaking for coffee involves a deliberate pause to provide space and time for people to connect.

In Sweden, work life has long revolved around fika, a once- or twice-a-day ritual in which colleagues put away phones, laptops, and any shoptalk to commune over coffee, pastries, or other snacks.

Swedish employees and their managers say the cultural tradition helps drive employee well-being, productivity, and innovation by clearing the mind and fostering togetherness.

Many Swedish companies build a mandatory fika into the workday, while the Embassy of Sweden in Washington holds one for staff weekly. IKEA extols the virtues of fika: “When we disconnect for a short period, our productivity increases significantly.”

“Fika is where we talk life, we talk everything but work itself,” said Micael Dahlen, professor at the Stockholm School of Economics. The ritual helps drive “trivsel,” he says, a term that means a combination of workplace enjoyment and thriving. The concept is so fundamental to Swedish workplaces that many companies in Sweden have trivsel committees.

Some of the most successful people in history have done their best work in coffee shops. Pablo Picasso, JK Rowling, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Bob Dylan. Whether they’re painters, singer-songwriters, philosophers, or writers, people across nations and centuries have tapped into their creativity working away at a table in a café.

There are many ways coffee shops trigger our creativity in a way offices and homes don’t. Research shows that the stimuli in these places make them effective environments to work; the combination of noise, casual crowds, and visual variety can give us just the right amount of distraction to help us be our sharpest and most creative. (So, no, it’s not just that double espresso.)

Some of us stick in our earbuds as soon as we sit down to work in a public setting. But scientists have known for years that background noise can benefit our creative thinking. Several studies have shown that a low-to-moderate level of ambient noise in a place like a cafeteria can actually boost your creative output. The idea is that if you’re very slightly distracted from the task at hand by ambient stimuli, it boosts your abstract thinking ability, which can lead to more creative idea generation.

And while that “Goldilocks” level of noise is different for everyone, audio stimuli in the background also help us improve decision making. Some have even dubbed it “the coffee shop effect.” So, the jazz music, light conversation, and barista banging coffee grounds out of the grinder aren’t a nuisance, they could help you come up with your next magnum opus.

There’s also the fact that in a coffee shop, we’re surrounded by people who’ve come to do the same thing as us, which acts as a motivator. “It’s analogous to going to the gym for a workout,” says Sunkee Lee, assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business. “One of the biggest things about coffee shops is the social-facilitation effect: you go there, you see other people working and it puts you in a mood where you just naturally start working as well. Just observing them can motivate you to work harder.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Bible Study; Planning; Small Groups; Togetherness - There several intriguing applications here that range from the benefit of small group Bible studies in contrast to solo devotional times, to the benefit of having board meetings away from the usual setting. We all could benefit from surrounding ourselves with fellow believers who come together to motivate each other just by being in the same room.

Canadian professor and researcher, Beverly Fehr conducted a research study on love and commitment. It was very simple. She had two equivalent groups. One group came up with all of the attributes and characteristics of love, while the other group brainstormed all the attributes and characteristics of commitment. She simply then compared the two lists and found that around two-thirds of the words used for commitment were also used for love. What was her conclusion? Commitment is intrinsic to the very notion and concept of love.

But in today’s dating world, people are trying to get love without commitment. Researchers have a new word for this new relationship status—a "Situationship."

Time magazine defines it this way:

Somewhere between great-love and no-strings-attached lies a category of relationship that is emotionally connected but without commitment of future planning. It includes going on dates, having sex, building intimacy, but without a clear objective in mind. Enter situationship.

Situationships are one of the fastest growing relationship trends, which underscores the desire of many singles for an obligation-free relationship. The 2022 Tinder Year in Swipe Report noticed a “49 percent increase in members adding ‘situationships’ to their bios, with young singles saying they prefer situationships as a way to develop a relationship with less pressure.” Although situationships are touted as “more clearly defined than a hook-up,” they still retain tremendous ambiguity with no clarity of commitment, boundaries, or future togetherness.

Marvin Gaye, one of the most legendary soul singers of the 20th century, produced a series of hit recordings before his untimely death in 1984 from gun violence. But now, 40 years later, the world may experience a new set of never-heard recordings from the singer. “We can open a time capsule here and share the music of Marvin with the world," says Belgian lawyer Alex Trappeniers.

Assuming, of course, that ongoing legal proceedings can resolve their legal ownership. Trappeniers is the attorney for the family of Charles Dumolin, with whom Gaye once lived. Gaye moved to Belgium in 1981, to escape a cocaine habit he’d picked up living in London. While living with Dumolin, Gaye regained his health, and returned to recording. Some of the recordings he made during that time have never been released, and their potential value has only skyrocketed in the decades since his death.

And since Gaye gave them to the family, Trappeniers says, they should remain the family’s estate. He said, “They belong to [the family] because they were left in Belgium 42 years ago. Marvin gave it to them and said, 'Do whatever you want with it' and he never came back.”

The problem is, the Belgian law that would support the family’s custodianship of the physical tapes does not necessarily apply to intellectual property contained therein. If the heirs of the Gaye estate lay a claim to his music, the family could possess the recordings without a legal right to release them commercially. The Gaye family could legally own the music, but have no access to the tapes that contain them. Without a resolution, a legal stalemate would result.

Trappeniers says some kind of compromise and collaboration is necessary to bring Gaye’s new music to life. “I think we both benefit, the family of Marvin and the collection in the hands of [Dumolin's heirs]. If we put our hands together and find the right people in the world, the Mark Ronsons, or the Bruno Mars. ... Let's listen to this and let's make the next album.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Cooperation; Partnership; Teamwork; Unity – Much can be accomplished in any area of society where there is collaboration instead of competitiveness. This is what Paul told the Corinthian church, “I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree together, so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be united in mind and conviction” (1 Cor. 1:10-17).

In today's highly politicized media climate, various opinions surround several ongoing conflicts. These conflicts include the ongoing war in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas. Amidst these tensions, New York Times columnist Catherine Pearson offers tips for navigating holiday gatherings.

Pearson's advice aims to help individuals maintain composure and connection during challenging times. These tips were curated from hundreds submitted by readers who were asked to contribute their own best practices in avoiding family drama.

“Control the setting,” suggested one reader in Georgia. “We host, every year, every holiday … It has been easier to be where we can control the environment and where we have a safe space.”

“Find a connection,” suggested another reader in Arizona, who cited a mutual love of music that draws two brothers together during the holidays, despite very different political views. “We brought our guitars to the gathering … when we’re singing, we can’t fight.”

“When in doubt, talk sports,” says a reader from Florida, whose family has an unofficial list of topics to avoid in order to keep the peace. “When issues arise, we enjoy the old fallback: ‘How about those Mets?’”

There were even helpful responses in the comment section. One commenter suggests putting out markers and construction paper and having everyone decorate their own placemat. Apparently giving everyone a project can help cut down on arguments.

Possible Preaching Angle:

As we gather with our families and as our broader church family, let's not allow our differences to keep us from loving one another and treating each other with respect.

Two researchers have found that success comes with a trap: It can cause teams to rely more on their “stars.” This makes the team less adaptable and more likely to get stuck in old ways of doing things. And, ultimately, it increases the chances of failure the next time around.

They started their research by looking at pro basketball teams. They examined teams in the NBA across more than 60,000 games, spanning 34 years. Leveraging motion-tracking-camera data, they looked at how teams’ passing patterns and shot distributions changed after wins and losses. Here’s their conclusion:

We found that after winning, teams became more reliant on their star players. Teams passed the ball about 6% more to the stars, and their shot distribution skewed 15% more toward the big performers. Although doubling down is intuitive (“We want to exploit what worked before”), it ended up decreasing teams’ chances of winning the next game. The increased reliance on the star players made teams more predictable to the next opponent and easier to defend—and therefore less likely to win the game … Our studies suggest that success threatens teams.

Their recommendation? Focus on the whole team, not just the stars. The researchers concluded, “When teams succeed, the credit is less likely to focus on specific performers, but rather on the team. Likewise, blame is less likely to be attributed solely to the stars, so the team can get a clearer picture of what went wrong.”

Sounds like the body of Christ!

A post-traumatic bond between strangers has led to an enduring friendship across generations. At the start of the day on August 28th, 2022, Travis Connor and Ray Shields had only one thing in common: they both wore matching ponytail hairstyles. But by the end, they would be bonded by another unlikely coincidence: both were on the premises of a Safeway grocery store in east Bend when a gunman opened fire, killing two and injuring others.

When the shots rang out. 62-year-old Shields had been using crutches, but tried to grab them and run when his hip gave out and he crumpled, collapsing to the ground. 31-year-old Connor had been glued to his phone, but quickly spied Shields, put him over his shoulder, and ran to get them both out of harm’s way.

That would’ve been the end of their time together, but according to Connor, “You don’t throw somebody over your shoulder and then say bye.” The two exchanged phone numbers and made plans to reconnect. Just three days later, they received grief counseling together at Pilot Butte Middle School, which led to a series of walks and hiking trips where they shared details of their lives with each other. That year they spent Thanksgiving together, and then Christmas. Shields said, “We quite literally fell into each other’s lives.” Connor replied, “It’s a special circumstance that the normal guy has never experienced.”

After his father passed in 2016, Connor, moved to Bend to seek a new start and escape the rut in which he felt stuck. But his chance encounter with Shields helped to catalyze positive change in his life. Connor said, “When I pulled Ray from the gunfire, I felt like the person I wanted to be was there.” Shields, who has no children and for whom most of his family had moved away, felt his friendship with Connor blossom into something like kinship. “In a way, I do see Travis as my son.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Nothing bonds people together like going through difficult circumstances together. When we demonstrate loyalty, support, and encouragement, we are modeling the character of God, who promised never to leave or forsake us.

In William Shatner’s new book, Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder, the Star Trek actor reflects on his voyage into space on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space shuttle on Oct. 13, 2021. Then 90 years old, Shatner became the oldest living person to travel into space, but as the actor and author details below, he was surprised by his own reaction to the experience. He wrote:

My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral. It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness.

Everything I had thought was wrong. Everything I had expected to see was wrong. I had a different experience, because I discovered that the beauty isn't out there, it's down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound.

Two school officials have been suspended after a firestorm of controversy involving a single email. Nicole Joseph and Hasina Mohyuddin are the associate dean and assistant dean, respectively, at the Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. The pair of staffers were required to “temporarily step back from their positions,” after they authored an all-campus email responding to the mass shooting at Michigan State University just days earlier. The email sparked outrage because some of the text was credited as having been written by ChatGPT, the popular AI writing tool.

It’s ironic that both deans worked in the college’s Office of Equity, Diversity & Inclusion, because most of the complaints stemmed from the fact that students didn’t feel the emails were particularly inclusive or equitable. On the contrary, student Bethanie Stauffer felt it was “disgusting.” She said, “There is a sick and twisted irony to making a computer write your message about community and togetherness because you can’t be bothered to reflect on it yourself.”

The next day, Joseph sent an apology email, but the damage had been done. Senior Laith Kayat said, “Deans, provosts, and the chancellor: Do more. Do anything. And lead us into a better future with genuine, human empathy, not a robot. [Administrators] only care about perception and their institutional politics of saving face.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

It is better to be authentic and make an effort to communicate, rather than using shortcuts. Leaders must demonstrate a commitment to serving and resist thoughtless communication.

When Minnesota farmer Scott Legried wasn't able to harvest his soybean crop, more than a dozen people showed up to get the job done. Scott was seriously injured in a car accident when he swerved to avoid hitting a puppy in the road. Scott went off the road, and ended up breaking his collarbone, a shoulder blade, and seven ribs; cracking two vertebrae, and sustaining a collapsed lung and concussion.

Doctors said he wouldn't be able to get on a tractor for several months. This was a problem because Scott runs his farm in the town of Frost almost entirely on his own, and the harvest from his 600 acres of corn and soybeans is his lone source of income. Once word spread in Frost—population 198—of what happened, one neighbor was able to recruit 18 farmers to help Scott. They arrived at Scott's farm with their equipment and in no time had the soybeans harvested. They will come back again for the corn.

Scott said, "This is a busy time of year for farmers, so it meant the world to me. But I guess I really wasn't surprised. I'm lucky to live in a community where people have always looked out for each other.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

In the same way, when the church family lovingly helps each other, it serves as a powerful testimony to the world of Christ’s sacrificial love (John 13:34-35).

Suzanne Simard writes about ecosystems from the viewpoint of adaptation and evolution. But her comments pique the interest of those who love the diversity and interconnectedness of the Body of Christ. She writes:

We can think of an ecosystem of wolves, caribou, trees, and fungi creating biodiversity just as an orchestra of woodwind, brass, percussion, and string musicians assemble into a symphony. Or our brains, composed of neurons, axons, and neurotransmitters, produce thought and compassion. Or the way brothers and sisters join to overcome a trauma like illness or death, the whole greater than the sum of the parts.

The cohesion of biodiversity in a forest, the musicians in an orchestra, the members of a family growing through conversation and feedback, through memories and learning from the past. Through this cohesion, our systems develop into something whole and resilient.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Members of the body of Christ, with different personalities, gifts, and backgrounds are “being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (Eph. 2:19-22).

A.W. Tozer wrote:

Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So, one hundred worshipers met together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become “unity” conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.

Over the course of several months, Peter Skillman conducted a study pitting the skill of elite university students against that of the average kindergartner. Groups of four built structures using 20 pieces of spaghetti, 1 yard of tape, 1 yard of string, and 1 marshmallow. The only rule, the marshmallow had to end up on top.

Business students began by diagnosing the task, formulating a solution, and assigning roles. The kindergarteners, by contrast, got right to work, trying, failing, and trying again. Author Daniel Coyle explains the outcome, “We presume skilled individuals will combine to produce skilled performance.” But this assumption is wrong. In dozens of trials, the kindergartners built structures that averaged 26 inches tall, while the business school students built structures that averaged less than 10 inches.

We see smart, experienced business school students, and we find it difficult to imagine that they would combine to produce a poor performance. We see unsophisticated, inexperienced kindergartners, and we find it difficult to imagine that they would combine to produce a successful performance . . . individual skills are not what matters. What matters is the interaction.

The kindergartners succeed not because they are smarter but because they work together in a smarter way. They are tapping into a simple and powerful method in which a group of ordinary people can create a performance far beyond the sum of their parts.

The "marshmallow test" is a classic research project that illustrates our lack of self-control and delayed gratification. For the study, the researcher would give a child a marshmallow, and tell them that they could eat the marshmallow OR they could wait until the researcher would return several minutes later, at which time they would get a second marshmallow. Videos abound on YouTube featuring kids, in successive versions of the original experiment, waiting, playing with, and sometimes eating the first marshmallow, forgoing their chances of a second marshmallow.

In January 2020, the results of a new version of the experiment were released. In this new version, kids were paired up, played a game together, and then were sent to a room and given a cookie with the promise of another if they could wait for it by not eating the first cookie. However, some of the kids were put in what researches called an "interdependent" situation in which they were told they would only get the second cookie if both they and their partner could wait and refrain from eating. The results showed that the kids who were depending on each other waited for the second cookie significantly more often.

According to researcher Rebecca Koomen, "In this study, children may have been motivated to delay gratification because they felt they shouldn't let their partner down, and that if they did, their partner would have had the right to hold them accountable."

Possible Preaching Angle:

This research suggests that indeed we are better together than we are in isolation.

At the end of their debate, two candidates for a Vermont state House seat asked the moderator for a few extra minutes—not to make last-second appeals for votes, but rather to make a little music. Lucy Rogers, the Democrat, grabbed her cello, while Zac Mayo, the Republican, picked up his guitar. They started performing "Society" by Eddie Vedder, much to the surprise of everyone in attendance. "It strikes a chord," Mayo told CBS News. "To say to the world that this is a better way."

Rogers and Mayo agreed early on while campaigning in Lamoille County that they were going to be civil and treat each other with respect throughout the race. When Rogers asked Mayo if he wanted to play a song with her, he thought it was a fantastic idea—as did the voters who attended the debate.

Possible Preaching Angles:

This is a powerful example of people who can disagree without being disagreeable. Church members who disagree should take note and also demonstrate this attitude to one another as the world is watching.

Ron Bryce writes in “The Fingerprint of God“:

One day, as I assisted a surgeon, he had me reach into the patient's chest and turn his heart so he could work on it from a better angle. As I gingerly swiveled it, he asked, "How does it feel to hold a man's beating heart in your hand?" In spite of our manipulations, the man's heart kept thumping as billions of tiny heart cells communicated and coordinated their activities.

The cells in your heart rhythmically contract in unity, acting together to produce a heartbeat. If these living cells are separated from the heart in a test tube, they will instinctively continue beating, but not in coordination with each other. If the cells are brought back in contact with one another, the instant they touch, their contractions again become synchronized.

That is the nature of heart cells. Individual heart cells cannot accomplish their God-given function alone. They were designed to be one of many cells in one heart. While they serve a unique function in the body, they are not useful if they don't communicate and coordinate their efforts. If the members of an entire body don't communicate, life is not possible. A single heart cell working alone cannot pump blood to the body, no matter how hard it tries. It needs the other cells to fulfill its purpose.

This is a consistent pattern found in all living bodies. The only way a body can survive is through its many members working together. All living bodies have communication among the members.

Amy Chua's book Political Tribes tells the story of Carl Marlantes, a marine Lieutenant who served in Vietnam, who observed how the military creates unity among diverse soldiers. He recalls being on the remote jungle hilltop in Vietnam in 1968 and being asked by Ray Del Gato, "an 18-year-old Hispanic kid from Texas," if he wanted to try a tamale from a care package that Ray's mother had sent him. Marlantes tried the tamale but complained that it was very tough to eat. "Lieutenant," Ray finally said. "You take the corn husk off."

Years later Marlantes reflected on how focusing on a common mission can bring different people together:

I was from a small town on the Oregon coast. I'd heard of tamales, but I've never seen one. Until I joined my company of Marines in Vietnam, I'd never even talked to a Mexican. I saw how [the military] brought together young men from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds and forced them to trust one another with their lives … If I was pinned down by enemy fire and I needed an M-79 man, I'd scream for Thompson, because he was the best. I didn't even think about what color Thompson was. … White guys had to listen to soul music and black guys had to listen to country music. We didn't fear one another. And the experience stuck with us. Hundreds of thousands of young men came home from Vietnam with different ideas about race – some for the worse, but most for the better. Racism wasn't solved in Vietnam, but I believe it was where our country finally learned that it just might be possible for us all to get along.

It's no news flash that friends make us happy, but Meliksah Demir, Ph.D., a professor at Northern Arizona University, has drilled down to reveal exactly what about friendship warms our hearts. It turns out that companionship—simply doing things together—is the component of friendship that most makes us happy. And the reason friends make us happy, Demir has concluded, is that they make us feel that we matter.

In her book Grapes of Wrath Or Grace, Barabra Brokhoff tells the following story:

A group of American tourists were taking a bus tour in Rome led by an English-speaking guide. Their first stop was a basilica in a piazza, which was surrounded by several lanes of relentless Roman traffic. After they were all safely dropped off, the group climbed the steps for a quick tour of the church.

Then they spread out to board the bus, which was now parked across the street from the church. The frantic guide shouted for the group to stay together. He hollered out to them, "You cross one by one, they hit you one by one. But if you cross together, they think you will hurt the car! They won't hit you."

There is always much to be said for unity, especially unity of the Spirit.