The Side Effects of Community

Recently I’ve noticed that our faith community is beginning to impact people who are not necessarily ‘full-timers’.  In other words, there are people on the periphery who hang out for friendship or something to do.  They also are not afraid to ask for help when they have a need, and we are not afraid to oblige.  The interesting thing is that these people often attend other churches and in some cases might not even like our gatherings.  But, just the nature of our relationship and our ‘life together’ is in some way encouraging or helpful to them.  While talking to a friend about this today I mentioned that I think this is part of our calling - to be an underground blessing to the Church and others.

I ran across this related quote today from Jean Vanier’s book Community and Growth:

“We shouldn’t seek the ideal
community. It is a question of loving those whom God has set beside us today.
They are signs of God. We might have chosen different people, people who were
more cheerful and intelligent. But these are the ones God has given us, the ones
he has chosen for us. It is with them that we are called to create unity and
live a covenant. We choose our own friends; but in our families, we do not
choose our brothers and sisters; they are given to us. So it is in community
life.” - Jean Vanier

Good stuff.