What is your biggest fear?
At our opening retreat, we played Hot Seat, a game where one person fields any question the group wants to ask. Some were lighthearted—like “If you could have a superpower, what would it be?”—while others dug a little deeper. I kept asking, “What’s your biggest fear?”
After hearing the same answer, “being alone”, more than once, I changed it to “What’s your biggest tangible and intangible fear?” For me, snakes are an easy tangible fear (still working on that one). But like many of my friends, the thought of being alone (or worse, being rejected by people who really know me) is far more unsettling.
Even though Hot Seat was mostly just a fun way to get to know each other, the answers pointed to something real: our deep need to be connected to one another. And that’s exactly what the Nashville Fellows program offers the 13 of us stepping into this year—community.
It may sound like a cop-out for me to say the part of Fellows I’m most looking forward to is community, but that really is the essence of the Fellows program. We are given community in our churches, at our jobs, with host families, with former Fellows, in the greater Nashville area, and most closely, with each other. When my parents say I’m “doing a fellowship program,” I try to correct them. It’s called Fellows for a reason. It’s not about the processes but the people, and that distinction matters.
Of course, anyone, Christian or not, can find community through friendships or shared interests. And we certainly have both here. But what sets this community apart is its purpose: joining together for the sake of Jesus, spurring one another on toward good works, and learning how to live life deeply rooted in Him. That means when we feel at odds with one another or like there are people we just don’t click with as much, we lean into those relationships even more and let God work through them.
We discussed a book we read over the summer, Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, which helps frame the kind of community we want to pursue. Bonhoeffer tells us: “Christian brotherhood is not an ideal we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.” In other words, this fellowship isn’t something we achieve by effort or can hope to mold into our ideal - it’s a gift from God that we receive as is.
I’m now two weeks into working at a commercial real estate company, and sometimes I feel like I’m in my own version of “Forks” (if you’ve watched The Bear, you’ll understand; if not, you should). Some of my time is spent sorting, stuffing, and digitizing mail, and in Fellows we often talk about doing good work and doing it well, no matter the task. While working, I’ve been listening to a podcast called Rule of Life that explores practices of community. One episode that stood out to me focused on shame: the fear that if people truly knew us, they would reject us. That conversation hit me, because shame doesn’t just weigh on us individually; it erodes our ability to live in real community. We see this first in Genesis 3: after Adam and Eve sinned, they felt shame and hid from God, no longer in perfect communion with Him.
Shame remains one of the greatest barriers to community. The way forward, as Bonhoeffer writes, is through confession: “In confession the breakthrough to community takes place. Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive the power of sin over him.”
I’ve already seen Fellows live this out: from someone apologizing after frustration got the better of them, to Monday night roundtables where we hear stories of brokenness and redemption. Leaning into that brokenness, confessing rather than hiding, and pursuing relationships with people who are different, or even difficult for us, is how real community begins to form.
I may not know what these next eight months will hold, but I don’t have to fear because Christ is with me, and He’s given me a community to walk alongside.
Will Bonhagen, Class 13
Hometown: Orlando, Florida
Florida State Graduate
