Quotes About Community

Church must not be the goal of the gospel anymore. Church should not be the focus of our efforts or the banner we hold up to explain what we're about. Church should be what ends up happening as a natural response to people wanting to follow us, be with us, and be like us as we are following the way of Christ. (The Tangible Kingdom by Halt and Smay)

I dream of a church that is once again called great, even by our skeptics, because our works of mercy cannot be denied.

Spoiler alert: You are amazing. You are. This grace thing is no joke. We get to live a free life. So do other people because God gave us Jesus, who fixed everything. Instead of being 'right' at each other all the time, we can just live these beautiful, precious lives of ours in full freedom. It really is good news.

Loneliness can be a prison, but we have keys. You needn't wait for someone to open the bars. If you can make a pot of chili and use a cell phone, then you can create community.

Honestly, I love Jesus but sometimes His followers give me a migraine.

I may just be one shade of one color of one strand, but I'm part of an elaborate tapestry that goes beyond my perception.

the beginning of time, creation encountered its first problem: "It is not good for the man to be alone." Thus history began with human connection. Two are better than one, and togetherness is always superior to loneliness.

This kind of woman also wants this freedom for everyone else; I cannot overstate this important correlation and how necessary it is right now. She craves a genuine world, a more honest and sincere community, relationships based in truth telling, to be refreshing to a parched world. She is not afraid of herself, so she is unafraid of others. She is fierce. She is free. She is full of fire.

When the worship of God turns into a "worship experience," we have derailed as the body of Christ.

The church the Bible described is exciting and adventurous and wrought with sacrifice. It cost believers everything, and they still came.

I've discovered reduced consumption doesn't equal reduced community or reduced contentment. There is something liberating about unplugging the machine to discover the heartbeat of life still thumping.

Send kindness out in big, generous waves, send it near and far, send it through texts and e-mails and calls and words and hugs, send it by showing up, send it by proximity, send it in casseroles, send it with a well-timed "me too," send it with abandon.

What makes you feel strong and fully alive? What lights you up and gives you energy just thinking about it? Who would you be to your village if you had one? BECOME AN INTEGRAL PART OF SOMETHING. Whether it's a knitting group, dance troupe, church, kayaking club, or homeschool collective, commit to growing community around one area of your life that enlivens you or fills a need.

When church is less like a family and more like an enterprise, its leaders act less like pastors and more like commanders. This puts everyone in danger—the leaders and the people. Spiritual abuse thrives where pastors are untouchable and people are commodities. No one intends this, but absolute power corrupts in every human environment.

It's about creating a place to belong before people are expected to behave or even believe.

What is good for the Kingdom is good for us all.

We can't deliver folks from their pits, but we can sure get in there with them until God does.

There is a clear correlation between how we treat each other and how a watching world will feel about Jesus. What should our neighbors deduce from our loving-kindness toward one another? One, that we obviously belong to Jesus, because what other explanation exists for such beautiful community?

If people around me aren't moved by my Christ or my church, then I must be doing a miserable job of representing them

If Jesus is the heart of the church, people are the lifeblood. There is a reason He created community and told us to practice grace and love and camaraderie and presence. People soften the edges and fill in the gaps. Friends make up some of the best parts of the whole story.

A shared table is the supreme expression of hospitality in every culture on earth. When your worn-out kitchen table hosts good people and good conversation, when it provides a safe place to break bread and share wine, your house becomes a sanctuary, holy as a cathedral. I've left a friend's table as sanctified and renewed as any church service. If you have a porch, then you have an altar to gather around.

It was hard to make room for my friends. But I did it.

The people you surround yourself with are excellent mirrors for who you are and how much, or how little, you love yourself.

There's something called the Crab Effect. If you put a bunch of crabs in a bowl and if, while they're in there crawling all over each other, one of them tries to climb out, the rest of them will try to pull him back down instead of helping to push him out. No wonder they're called crabs.