Quotes about Community

Giving women education, work, the ability to control their own income, inherit and own property, benefits the society. If a woman is empowered, her children and her family will be better off. If families prosper, the village prospers, and eventually so does the whole country.

The apostle Paul similarly had loyal friends. "No man in the New Testament made fiercer enemies than Paul, but few men in the world had better friends.

Some made it an excuse for not attending the church service on a Sunday morning, that they could not awake early enough to get their families ready. He provided for this also. Taking a bell in his hand, he set out every Sunday for some months at five in the morning, and went round the most distant parts of the parish inviting all the inhabitants to the house of God.

Christ taught that the kingdom of God was a community where each member served the others. He defined His ultimate purpose using that term. But in most churches, a few people carry the load.

The church, for far too long, has been more interested in its seating capacity than in its sending capacity.

Our business is not enemy making but enemy loving. Our business is not dividing the country into blue and red states, but being a people of one accord. Our business is not securing the power to rule, but doing justice, showing mercy, and walking humbly with our God.

Time and again I hear how important the darker environment is to those at our vintage-faith worship gathering. Attenders feel they can freely pray in a corner by themselves without feeling that everyone is staring at them.

When organized religion organizes around the things Jesus would be pleased with, amazing things can happen.

This might sound odd, but I believe that one of the biggest reasons there are so many negative perceptions of Christianity and the church is that Christians hang out with each other too much.

God's house is now in the people of God wherever they are, whether it's in the parking lot, in a bowling alley, or in an office cubicle.

But when we understand that we are called to be the church, not just go to church, it changes our identity. No longer do we go to a building where religious activities happen and that is "church." We now are the church all week long.

When we think of church primarily as a place or an event we go to, we minimize the theologically rich identity of the church as the people of God. And this identity — of being the church — is more than a passive statement about who we are; it's also a call to action. As representatives of Jesus, those called to communicate and live out his message and the message about him, we are on a mission.