By maintaining outer ring and inner ring differences, visitors can feel confident that they’re in fact visiting without unintentionally becoming a member.

To grow a tight community, it’s essential to articulate the community’s core values clearly, at least for yourself. Not every value needs to be articulated, just the most important ones: those that tie the community’s members together.

Community origin stories communicate who the community serves, why it serves, and often how it serves.

The principles we will explore in detail are: 1. Boundary: The line between members and outsiders. 2. Initiation: The activities that mark a new member. 3. Rituals: The things we do that have meaning. 4. Temple: A place set aside to find our community. 5. Stories: What we share that allows others and ourselves to know our values. 6. Symbols: The

They’ll look for something to interpret as an initiation if one isn’t offered. This may be an extemporaneous compliment from a leader, an invitation to teach other insiders, or more intimate invitations away from outer ring activities, such as a private party, an intimate conversation, or an unadvertised gathering.

On our journey, we want to be taught, and we also want to teach. This is why creating opportunities to both mentor and be mentored are powerful.

A community is a group of individuals who share mutual concern for each other’s welfare. When we form a community that grows friendship, we create what we seek, friends who care about the welfare of one another.

This boundary should be more about making the inside space safe for insiders than about keeping outsiders out.

One of the great pleasures of being part of a community is that we don’t have to explain ourselves. We want to feel seen and understood without explaining the parts that outsiders don’t get.