Bonhoeffer says it best...

I just finished reading the transcript of an interview with Shane Claiborne that Elaine told me about. It's on a NPR site she recently discovered called Speaking of Faith. There was a really encouraging quote in the interview by Bonhoeffer. The interview talks about a much wider spectrum of issues and you should read the whole thing if you have time to get its broader context, but here's the quote:

"The person who's in love with their vision of community will destroy community. But the person who loves the people around them will create community everywhere they go."



I got really excited when I read this because God has been teaching me alot along the same lines recently. He's teaching me to be truely thankful for the community that he has given us and how it is not really ours. Everything that is good about it is the consequence of his goodness towards us, his grace. Anyway it's a somewhat difficult process of letting go of my ownership.



I guess I'm just saying that I get really happy when I see people in our "family" experiencing community wherever they go and that they are not stepping away from our community by experiencing it elsewhere. That goes for people in birmingham and outside as well.



Of course, you can always take it too far and there's a danger of stretching yourself too thin to the point that you are not really known because you're too busy being "vulnerable" to many people that you somehow escape the scary vulnerability of letting others challenge and confront you. I hope that God helps us find the balance.



PS. I can't get the link to work to find the interview but it's called "The New Monastics" and you'll find it if you search for it in the archives, I think.