True Community
"In and through community lies the salvation of the world. Nothing is more important. Yet it is virtually impossible to describe community meaningfully to someone who has never experienced it__and most of us have never had an experience of true community."..."True communication, like the charity it requires begins at home." __ The Different Drum, M.Scott Peck.
I pulled this out for this segment of my journey which is experiencing more of what community is all about. It isn't some scripted performance that is tried and failed, it is an ongoing exchange with human beings loving, being with, standing with, crying with, feeling and encouraging each other, allowing truth and feelings and emotions. It is offering support for every aspect of life needed.
The greatest form of community is within the home. All that is given to us is the greatest example of the external connections of taking 'the message', the light within us to the far corners of the earth.
Matthew 4:23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.
Matthew 16:15 He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.
Go you into the world, take the 'good news', it is the news that will set the world free, it is the news that diseases are healed, captives are set free, the blind see, the lame walk, the weary find rest, the naked are clothed, the hungry are fed, the homeless have homes.
Where is community? Where is the heart connection within us, Jesus in us, compassion, unconditional love reaching out into community? It is not a difficult thing to look into the faces of everyone we pass and have compassion, to say you are my brother, you are my sister, because we are. There is no race, no gender, no age that can intimidate when we are set free by 'truth'.
When we get rid of our self-righteousness and are broken, on our faces and crying out from all that is within us. Until we recognize who He is and what He did for us we will not experience 'community'. There is a world, not just 'a world' but real human beings with hearts and souls, God's fearfully and wonderfully made people, who are searching, hurting, reaching out to be 'set free' to know 'truth' and regardless of whether we see the outward appearances of 'our own shame', being that they are 'us'.
There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community. M. Scott Peck
Nor knowest thou what argumentThy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.All are needed by each one;Nothing is fair or good alone. Ralph Waldo Emerson
"An open heart invites the beloved in. It invites the stranger in and you, even the criminal. An open heart is a sanctuary where all are welcome. It is a temple where the laws of Spirit are practiced and celebrated. It is the church you must enter again and again to find redemption"Paul Ferrini, 'I am the Door'
Day after day if you dare to look, your eyes are wide open, because our hearts are wide open.Community happens because we 'see' and 'feel' each other, and the greatest community is Jesus in all of us. We no longer talk the talk, but walk the walk...together. We love each other as we love ourselves. The church is not only in the home, it is outside of the home, church is not just in a building, it is outside of the building. Church is community.
Think outside the box.
Video & Song
"I Will Be Here' Steven Curtis Chapman
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pEwzUZET-RQ&feature=related
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