Quotes about Community

Give all your gifts away in service to the world.  If you want to paint, don't wait for a grant, paint a wall in your town that looks drab and uninviting.  You never know who is going to see that wall. Whatever it is you want to do, give it away in service to your community.

The key, very simply, is other people.

The church should not be an assembly of the self-righteous but an assembly of people who admit that they are not righteous apart from God's grace.

Part of being a Christian is recognizing that sin deceives us, and we need other believers to help us see the things we cannot see about ourselves. Joining a church, I've often said, is like throwing paint on the invisible man. New sins become visible in the course of our discipling relationships.

Being united to Christ means being united to every Christian. But that universal union must be given a living, breathing existence in a local church.

Our individual lives alone are not a sufficient witness. Our lives together as church communities are the confirming echo of our witness.

Ask your friends what God has been teaching you about himself. Small groups can also be useful for facilitating these kinds of relationships.

Churches don't need programs so much as they need cultures of discipling, cultures where each member prioritizes the spiritual health of others.

To conquer your biology, stop seeing people sexually and start seeing them as family. In our day, we have really a perverted notion where it's like strangers and potential sexual objects.

The church was custom built by Jesus, and we are all works in progress. We do not expect people to get their sin in order before attending church any more than a hospital expects people to get healed before they show up.

Spirit-led Jesus followers recognize that they are imperfect Christians working with other imperfect Christians to serve a perfect Christ. When we love and give to one another, then we grow as individuals and as the family of God.136

Everyone is in a tribe, and the sooner we realize we are not each unique, like a snowflake—a special, one-of-a-kind person, just like Mama said—the sooner we will make sense of ourselves and the spiritual cul-de-sac we call home. You are likely not unique, particularly special