son become an open to others? What is the process of it? I think that the first and starting point is to be open to God. Here I would like to quote from the Rule of Northumbria Community that an openness to God should be in the cell of our own heart when we can be turned towards Him, and seek His face. Here there is logic. If people will be more open to God, they will show more openness toward others. Availability says, I will be there for you, and keeps this process continuing. People in availability commit themselves to be with someone, and really participate in the life of that person. With is a key of availability. As I said before, still it is hard process. Therefore, I think that first of all we need to start our open sharing with our brothers and sisters. If it will happen, then it will overflow into wider context of the society which is outside of the faith community.the achievement of this openness of ourselves, people need to overcome many barriers. I have heard often when people in some Ukrainian Baptist communities said, We need to be closed from this sinful world; and in this case they usually are referring to the passage from 2 Corinthians 6: 14-17 where it is written, What fellowship has light with darkness? .. Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? .. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them. Many Christians often try to build these protective walls from outward world. However, Jean Vanier points out that the Christian communities should manage to be apart from this world, but in the same time trying to keep them open to this world. It means that faith communities need to keep their Christian values ??and do not identify themselves with this world. However, still be open to outsiders and try to realize the true values ??which can exist in the society.also argues that those Christians who do not see this are incapable of listening to others. They hold strongly the ancient presupposition, All other people are wrong, just I am right. I have heard recently as a church leader of one Ukrainian community said, Now we are going to build the holy church and nothing and nobody unclean will not come in this place. I was wondering how this faith community understands its mission in this world. Here I again want to quote from the Northumbria Community s Rule which proclaims, Do not build walls for the non-Christian to climb over. I think that first Christians should overcome those walls and barriers that outsiders could come freely into the community of fellowship. When faith communities will make themselves open, then others will know truly what the Christians values ??are. In the light of these considerations, I think that Christian s community especially in Baptist context in Ukraine should rediscover and redefine the meaning of availability. From my point of view, availability can be only intentional, because without the willingness people never can be available to others. I like the definition of availability by Thomas Reynolds. It is an aptitude to give oneself to anything ... and to bind oneself by the gift. It implies that we should give ourselves as gift of availability for others. It is risky. However, it is precisely what the concept of sharing ourselves requires.be available is a very good quality of true friendship. However, the word friend or friendship quite often is used by some people as a label almost to everyone who are not their enemies. Nowadays a good example of labeling friends is the Facebook. Today many people have on their profiles a lot of other people who called as friends. However, there is no guarantee that they have strong friendships with many of them. From my point of view, the networks as the Facebook, or the Contact (Контакт), the Russian one, give to people a big opportunity to extend their acquaintanceship with other people; but, in the same time, they have a big influence on blurring a definition of true friendship. Gregory Jones would agree that social networks like Facebook or Contact (Контакт), the Russian one, are important and give people an opportunity to amplify their acquaintanceship with other people; however he says that Facebook friends and social networking are not adequate substitutes for authentic friendship. Then he continues, We may have multiple social networks and thousands of acquaintances and still find ourselves profoundly lonely. , Who can people call as friends? I like this definition of friendship - a friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Precisely to such person people can be truly open, and they can share with him or her everything what they have in their hearts. Only from true friends we can hear about the sides of our life about which we do not really prefer to talk. Sometimes friends can know us better than we know ourselves. The true friends are not like friends on the Facebook who are online just from time to time. The true friends are always ...
