Quotes about Community

We become neighbors when we are willing to cross the road for one another. (...) There is a lot of road crossing to do. We are all very busy in our own circles. We have our own people to go to and our own affairs to take care of. But if we could cross the road once in a while and pay attention to what is happening on the other side, we might indeed become neighbors.

Preaching means more than handing over a tradition; it is rather the careful and sensitive articulation of what is happening in the community.

By prayer, community is created as well as expressed.

It is my growing conviction that my life belongs to others just as much as it belongs to myself and that what is experienced as most unique often proves to be most solidly embedded in the common condition of being human.

In the midst of a turbulent, often chaotic, life we are called to reach out, with courageous honesty to our innermost self, with relentless care to our fellow human beings, and with increasing prayer to our God.

Every Christian is constantly invited to overcome his neighbor's fear by entering into it with him, and to find in the fellowship of suffering the way to freedom.

We want to live as people chosen, blessed, and broken, and thus become food for the world.

Those you have deeply loved become part of you. The longer you live, there will always be more people to be loved by you and to become part of your inner community. The wider your inner community becomes, the more easily you will recognize your own brothers and sisters in the strangers around you.

When we invite friends for a meal, we do much more than offer them food for their bodies. We offer friendship, fellowship, good conversation, intimacy, and closeness. When we say, 'Help yourself… take some more… don't be shy… have another glass…' we offer our guests not only our food and drink but also ourselves. A spiritual bond grows, and we become food and drink for one another.

Loneliness is painful; Solitude is peaceful. Loneliness makes us cling to others in desperation; solitude allows us to respect others in their uniqueness and create community...

Your way of being present to your community may require times of absence, prayer, writing, or solitude. These too are times for your community.

it is precisely in this continuous process of confession and forgiveness that we are liberated from our isolation and encounter the possibility of a new disarmed way of living. Christians are peacemakers not when they apply some special skill to reconcile people with one another but when, by the confession of their brokenness, they form a community through which God's unlimited forgiveness is revealed to the world.