Quotes about Community

In sum: the church exists to be a living exhibit of the reality of the gospel.

The church has become the theater of the gospel, and in this theater, there are no passive spectators, only engaged participants, acting out what is in Christ.

Christian identity, the role disciples have been called to play, requires being with others. It takes two or three gathered in Christ's name fully to represent him. It takes a company.

Doctrine forms disciples when it helps the church to act out its new life in Christ.

Public theology is first and foremost a reaction against the tendency to privatize the faith, restricting it to the question of an individual's salvation. As we shall see in later chapters, the church is not a collection of saved individuals but the culmination of the plan of salvation: to create a people of God.

The church is biblical, therefore, when it seeks to embody the words in the power of the Spirit and so become a living commentary. The church is thus not only the "people of the book" but also "the (lived) interpretation of the book.

The distinct experiential end in question in the church, communion with God and others, neither justifies nor fits many marketing means. The increase of the kingdom of God owes more to the work of the Spirit than to Madison Avenue.

On the Day of Atonement, the Levites performed the central sacrificial rites of the believing community, stewarding annual ceremonies that in graphic detail pictured the evil nature of sin and the bloody nature of divinely provided atonement for sin. The Day of Atonement was a visceral affair, filled with blood and fire and death and, at the pulsing core of it all, the realized hope of forgiveness through repentance. The people could be pure.

I've often found myself in circumstances that were too big for me. But I've never faced anything in life that was too big for my family.

Remember, God made us different because we needed suitable helpers. The more we understand and appreciate how we are different, the better we can draw on and receive the help that we need from one another.

Somebody once said, "Show me a man's friends and I will tell you about that man's character." We should love everybody and never neglect the poor or needy, but the people whom we allow to influence us really determine our future.

Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted" (Galatians 6:1).