Find Your People by Jennie Allen
Week 12: Chapter 11 — Suffer Together
Read Chapter 11 of Find Your People by Jennie Allen.
Previewing Week 12 of Find Your People
Read 3 of 7 discussion questions below. Unlock the complete 14-week guide when you’re ready.
Jennie saved perhaps her most important — and most countercultural — chapter for near the end: genuine community is forged in suffering. The question is whether we'll let people in when it's hardest.
Discussion Questions
7 questions1.Jennie argues that shared suffering is often the catalyst that turns a group of people into a genuine community — that difficulty accelerates depth in ways that easy seasons cannot. Does your own experience confirm this? Think of a relationship that was transformed by going through something hard together.
2.She is honest about our tendency to perform wellness — to say 'I'm fine' even when we're falling apart — especially in Christian contexts where we feel pressure to have it together. Where and with whom are you most likely to perform wellness? What does that performance cost you?
3.Jennie challenges readers not just to let people in during their own suffering, but to move toward people who are suffering — to resist the discomfort of being with someone in pain. Think of someone in your life who is currently suffering. How close are you leaning in? What makes it hard to move toward pain rather than away from it?