Quotes about Community

We first must plant the gospel in the hearts and lives of people and then see what form of ecclesia emerges from the transformed community. If we begin with the premise that we are starting a "church," it will often come loaded with intuitional and cultural assumptions. Churches should grow out of the mission, not the other way around.

One hidden act of kindness is worth more than all the burial mounds of rhetoric, all the mumbling and fumbling and tardiness of Christians so preoccupied with cultivating their prayer lives that they cannot hear the anguished cry of the child in the barrio.

It seems that I always am and always have been an outsider. I've never really fit in. I was always too religious for my rowdy friends—they thought I was unbelievably hung up—and too rowdy for my religious friends—they were always praying for me.

The Beatitudes, far from being a new set of virtues that further divide the religious haves and have nots, are words of hope and healing to those who have been marginalized.

One of the most important responsibilities in the Christian life is to care about others, smile at them, and be a friend to the friendless.

Christians must pioneer new ways to bind ourselves to Scripture, to our traditions, and to each other—not for mere survival, but so that the church can be the authentic light of Christ to a world lost in darkness.

There's one thing that 82 percent of all unchurched people can't seem to resist. It cuts through their defenses and penetrates their barriers. According to surveys at LifeWay Research, 82 percent of them seem to have a single weakness: if a friend, or someone they know, invites them to church. Reread that: 82 percent of all unchurched people would come to church this weekend if they were invited by a friend.

The relevance of the church is not found in its capitulation to culture but in its transformation of culture.

Unloving attitudes and words cause a "stench that the world can smell... Our sharp tongues, the lack of love between us... these are what properly trouble the world."

What people think about God, Jesus Christ, and the Church cannot be separated from their own social and political status in a given society.

When we ask people what they want in church instead of giving them what they were created to long for, we play in the very idolatry that church was created to dismantle.

The body of Christ is about doing life together, and by doing life together sin is revealed.