The Formation of a Group

As a (future) sociologist, I find group dynamics to be incredibly fascinating. How do people, when brought into a group, form their identity in the group? What makes groups "click" or not "click (a technical sociological term)? I just really find interesting how random people come together to form a group and create a group identity and come to function as a group.

So naturally, as people showed up to Miami and Daytona, this has made the future intellectual in me go crazy. This morning, Jenna, Lewie, Marianne, Jon, and I headed into Miami to hang out and kill time while waiting for Shannon to arrive. We found a cute little cafe on the side of Ocean Drive. We had a delicious a cheap brunch, then decided to take a stroll on the beach. It was gorgeous.

The conversation has been great and group has opened up to each other quickly, both in Miami and after meeting up with Mark and Andy in Daytona following a four hour drive that involved discussing Matthew 6, farting, vomiting, and Kids Across America (a camp where Mark, Jon, and Lewie had worked for two summers). We've come to share our testimonies (some twice since we shared as the five of us in Miami recounted them while sitting on rocks getting sunburned on the Miami beach).

So going back to my sociological mind...we have all found our common denominator: Christ. It's amazing that so diverse a group of people from different parts of the US get real extraordinarily quickly. I could go down a Durkheimian explanation of solidarity or religion's role in society (aka religion=society), but Durkheim has religion wrong. We won't discuss that now, considering my lack of knowledge of the debate regarding Durkheim and not having a Ph.D. Part of my wants to believe, however, that sociological theory cannot explain a group of Christians coming together to bond and share their love of Christ and the women of the DRC.

Til next time,
BMD