A community is....

"A community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared, and that the people who share the place define and limit the possibilities of each other's lives. It is the knowledge that people have of each other, their concern for each other, their trust in each other, the freedom with which they come and go among themselves."

— Wendell Berry

true

grace, community - these two words keep coming up in things I’m reading...

“There is in true grace an infinite circle: a man by thirsting receives, and receiving, thirsts for more.” Thomas Shepard

“In true community we are windows constantly offering each other new views on the mystery of God’s presence in our lives.” Henri Nouwen

justice & mercy

A few of us from my church met up with 3 inspiring ladies on thursday night who are reaching out into their local communities via a ministry (connected with their churches) called Besom in east belfast and ballynahinch. Very thought provoking... and challenging. We are just trying to think about ideas of ways we, as a church, could maybe help meet the needs of the community around us.... it's one thing to know we want to 'do justice and love mercy' but how exactly to put that into practice as a church is more difficult.

"If justice is the heart of God's vision for his redemptive work, we are bound to see the ecclesia as the alternative society in which those who are 'called out' of oppressive societies live that vision out." Scot McKnight, A Community Called Atonement p130

"Mercy is a command of God, yet it cannot simply be a response to a demand. It must arise out of hearts made generous and gracious by an understanding and experience of God's mercy. It is the hearts of the congregation that must be melted until they ask, 'where is my neighbour?'" Tim Keller, Ministries of Mercy p135

by love

"I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God."
....
"When I said early in this essay that we live in a world that was created and exists and is redeemable by love, I did not mean to sentimentalize it. For this is also a fallen world. It involves error and disease, ignorance and partiality, sin and death. If this world is a place where we may learn of our involvement in immortal love, as I believe it is, still such learning is only possible here because that love involves us so inescapably in the limits, sufferings, and sorrows of mortality."
-Wendell Berry

for the context of these two quotes check out this speech... Health is membership.

coffee spoons and TS Eliot

On Monday, Foy Vance was singing a cover about measuring life with coffee spoons and TS Eliot... So coffee in hand, here's a quote from the man himself... (from Choruses from the Rock, 1934)

What life have you, if you have not life together?
There is not life that is not in community...
---
When the Stranger says: "What is the meaning of this city?
Do you huddle close together because you love each other?"
What will you answer? "We all dwell together
To make money from each other"? or "This is a community"?

Maybe how this community reacts in the coming days... facing difficult political and economic hurdles... might say something about the meaning of this place.

exact places

Reading about church planting in belfast and portadown and trying to get in touch with another friend who has recently moved to start a galway church plant has made me think about a quote I read last summer...

Driscoll, referring to John 17:15–18 says: “Jesus prayed that we would not leave the sick and dying world and huddle into a safe subcultural ghetto of Christian nicety, but that we would stay in the world.” (from The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World)

I’m still trying to figure out what that looks like for me. In the next year, I’ll have to figure out where I’m heading... what continent, never mind what city, town, or 'ghetto'... At this point in my life it will be largely influenced by where I can find a job. But I hope having a vision for the community where I choose to live will be part that decision...

‘...he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him...’ acts 17:26-27

In the meantime, I still don't really know my neighbours...

shared lives

“We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.” 1 Thess 2:8

I love this verse. Surely this is at the heart of everything: a life of love for each other that is reflected in mission and community. It's just figuring out what that looks like that's sometimes complicated...

alone and community

"Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. Let him who is not in community beware of being alone..."

"Only as we are within the fellowship can we be alone, and only he that is alone can live in the fellowship."

"The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us."

Just some thoughts from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together that I read recently. He understood the need to both be in community and yet still to be able to be alone... I'm craving community at the minute and just feel like I'm floating a bit. But at the same time, I have so much to learn about being alone before God... learning the freedom to be alone...

"What a man is alone on his knees before God, that he is, and no more."

-Robert Murray M'Cheyne