Quotes About Community

most evangelical churches are filled with people who live very much like the world but look different from it. It should be exactly the opposite. We should look similar to those in our community but act differently.

It's ironic that most evangelical churches are filled with people who live very much like the world but look different from it. It should be exactly the opposite. We should look similar to those in our community but act differently.

Just as the true fruit of an apple tree is not an apple, but another tree; the true fruit of a small group is not a new Christian, but another group; the true fruit of a church is not a new group, but a new church; the true fruit of a leader is not a follower, but a new leader; the true fruit of an evangelist is not a convert, but new evangelists. Whenever this principle is understood and applied, the results are dramatic.

Every church and believer must ask: What are we known for in the community? What do we represent?

Together we are called to ask, What does it mean to be followers of Christ in our local community? In what ways do our values and beliefs shape how we live out the gospel and its implications in our cultural context? How can we best communicate the hope and truth in Jesus' Kingdom to our friends, neighbors, coworkers, and family?

When the church protects the powerful at the expense of the victim, we have compromised. And in the end, these compromises add up and convince the world that the church is not a community for the broken in search of healing but just another human institution that puts expediency above righteousness and justice.

Contrary to Western evangelicalism's obsession with the individual, discipleship is and always was a group project. No one in the New Testament followed independent of other followers. —Steve Murrell, Wikichurch

Growth happens in community because the Bible places community as a critical step of obedience for the Christ follower. So the Christ follower outside of community is living in disobedience.

Human happiness stems from faith in God, from human association, and from a desire to live and let live.

understanding of God's will starts with surrender of our wills to Him and with charitable, loving acts of service to others. We cannot live unto ourselves alone.

When you ask the question, "Who are they?" you'll find that there are three answers you can have. Because when it comes to the "they" in your life, you'll find three different types of people: "For You," "Use You," and "With You" types.

I just believe in the goodwill of people, the power of people to do something positive.

What I love about the East End is that there's a great perseverance, determination and courage. What I dislike about it is that there is sometimes a celebration of ignorance.

We have to become better people by fundamentally transforming the conditions of our living together. This will require setting aside our comforting illusions.

I would like us to do something unprecedented,' Baldwin wrote in 1967, 'to create ourselves without finding it necessary to create an enemy.

We have to muster the moral strength to reimagine America....The moral stamina to fight this fight requires that we cultivate our own elsewhere, because the one 'who finds no way to rest cannot long survive the battle....' We have to find and rest in a community of love....In our time, with so much hatred and venom in our politics and our culture, we must actively cultivate communities of love that allow us to imagine different ways of being together.

When residents erupted in Baltimore, Maryland, after the murder of Freddie Gray, one activist was seen outside the Western District police station with a sign quoting Baldwin: "Ignorance allied with power is the most ferocious enemy of justice.

Harry Golden, editor of The Carolina Israelite, suggested that the 'hoodlum element' might not have so shamed the town and the nation if several of the town's leading businessmen had personally escorted Miss Counts to school.

I remembered working on my last book and traveling to Ferguson, Missouri, and to Raleigh, North Carolina, to bear witness to what happened there. In those spaces, I saw and heard people saying no. In their pursuit of a more just America, they made a choice to not adjust themselves to the status quo and to put their bodies on the line for a different America where black people and those on the margins of this society might flourish.

We have to find and rest in a community of love.

by black people who they believe don't belong in their space.

The neighbourhood was silent in the early morning, aside from the guy at the end of the street who played non-stop Slayer in his garage.

A happy New Year! Grant that I May bring no tear to any eye When this New Year in time shall end Let it be said I've played the friend, Have lived and loved and labored here, And made of it a happy year.

To express love in thine activities to thy neighbor is the greater service that a soul may give in this mundane sphere.