nothing in common?

Remember when you had friends with whom all you had in common was that you were friends? I guess back then we went to school where football and basketball players, geeks, band people, chess club members, Christians, and golfers all attended. When I life guarded during the summers, several of us would hang around after the pool closed and swim awhile and then think about going out to do something. We’d climb out of the pool, onto the deck by the diving boards and lay there looking up and toss out ideas of things to do. Naw, that doesn’t sound fun to me, how about…. Naw, I’m not in the mood for that. The conversation would then veer for awhile and come back to, “well whatta ya wanna do?” This cycle could go on ad infinitum. We’d end up just hanging out and talking. Here were guys who never would have hooked up had we not been working together. We couldn’t find anything to do because we had “nothing in common”. Except each other. By the end of the summer we were tight. When we got together, it was to be together. It was never that we wanted to do something and needed someone with whom to do it.
These days all divisions, groups, committees, task forces, Sunday school classes, and think tanks, are manipulated to contain like peoples. Reformed students, humanities professors, businessmen, young marrieds, with/without children, singles, single again, meat eaters, wife beaters, long hairs, no hairs.
Now I know that ministry is more effective among people with similar current experiences. People will be more comfortable among people with whom they can relate. But when we zero in on our circumstantial, temporary needs, does this make it harder to see the common need among all? Do we imply that our special group needs God to be relevant to our situation in a different way than He is relevant to another group’s situation?
We all need God for the same reasons regardless of who we are, our age, whether we’re married, man, or woman.
So I’m not trying to be radical here and say that we should do away with specifically targeted ministries like seniors, singles, college, young marrieds. But I wonder if we wouldn’t have a huge community benefit by seeking more interaction with people who’ve been categorized differently than ourselves? Maybe my current situation doesn’t make me so special after all. Maybe I can be ministered to and minister to someone who’s been married 57 years and has had no children. While we’re seeking to grow to outrageous proportions, it will become increasingly necessary to plug into smaller portions with whom we can feel community. Why not cross-pollinate? Why not allow my small circle be representative of the diversity of the larger God-seeking community?