Quotes about Community

According to Mother Teresa, it is among the wealthy that we can find the most terrible poverty of all—loneliness. So perhaps I was still among the poorest of the poor, but these poor folks had some cash!

There are far too many Christians who believe that theological conformity is a prerequisite for community.

I once heard a pastor say, "The church is like Noah's ark. It stinks, but if you get out of it, you'll drown." I

That's why we give people fish, and also teach people to fish, and then also do something about who owns the pond. These all have to go together like a tripod or a three-legged stool. Without one leg, the stool get a little wobbly and out of balance. Charity workers need to also have a vision for justice. And justice workers need to keep their feet on the streets of injustice.

God's deepest longing is for the church to be united as one body. In Jesus' longest recorded prayer, he prayed that we would be "one as God is one." As one old preacher said, "We gotta get it together, because Jesus is coming back, and he's coming for a bride, not a harem.

Wouldn't we all go to a church that believes in ordinary fools and ragamuffins and whose gospel is actually good news? I

I also heard a good metaphor from a rancher. He was talking cows, but I think it works with people too. He explained that there are two ways to keep your cows together. One is by building fences and gates. The other is by creating a really good food source. When you create a really good food source in the center, you don't have to worry as much about all the gates and fences and who's in and who's out.

We have not shown the world another way of doing life. Christians pretty much live like everybody else; they just sprinkle a little Jesus in along the way. And doctrine is not very attractive, even if it's true. Few people are interested in a religion that has nothing to say to the world and offers them only life after death, when what people are really wondering is whether there is life before death. As

I remain convinced to this day that if we continue to lose young people in the church, it won't be because we made the gospel too hard but because we made it to easy.

Some folks give people fish. Others teach people to fish. Others ask, "Who owns the pond? And why does a fishing license cost so much?

Little people with big dreams are reimagining the world. Little movements of communities of ordinary radicals are committed to doing small things with great love. Now

a generation that stops complaining about the church it sees and becomes the church it dreams of. And