The Best Thing I've Heard

2009 February 09

by Tyler

Friday night listening to Shane Claiborne was, as expected, a very challenging time. He is convicting because he speaks so much truth. At the end of his talk he had a question/answer time and responding to one of the questions Shane said this (it is definitely the best thing I’ve heard in a long time):

“The person who is in love with their vision of community will destroy it. The person who loves the people around them already has it.”

Could this be more relevant to churches today? I hear of churches all the time trying the next great idea of what creates community, yet Shane makes it much more simple than that.

Your thoughts?

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http://ash-nits.blogspot.com ash

ha ha…how interesting, i just a discussion w/ several people this weekend on something like this. i think it’s about being able to separate the people from the institution. in this case, the people from the community they are in. when you go after the people for love you will reach them. befriend them. but if you go to “convert” them, “bring them in” to church…you will ultimately push them away. it should be about having a vision for people, a love for people and not a “community project.” my boyfriend’s sister actually asked me this weekend what i thought were some major things about the local church that needed to be thought out, changed if nec. her church’s goal, she hopes to push, is the young people (college age, college town)- one of the things i mentioned was finding was to not alienate people based off a hierarchy of sins…i think we skip love when we do that, we judge the world on the very thing they’re “supposed” to be doing, so to speak and we get no-where. we rave about visions, but it does little good, but it’s more about “conversion” than it is about human life, grace, forgiveness, and love. perhaps i’m not putting this very eloquently…but it’s a start.
http://www.aworshipfulheart.typepad.com janowen

profound. i’ll have to think on this to unpack it. btw, i just posted snowtubing video!
http://ryanguard.net ryanguard

I’m reading “Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers” by Claiborne right now, and I actually read that in the book last night. (He also said it in “Irresistible Revolution”).

Have you read much of Dallas Willard? He says a lot of similar things in “The Divine Conspiracy”. Even in an interview I just watched of him he was saying that our churches would explode with growth if we stopped trying to explode with growth and just cared about each other the way we were intended to. In Shane’s prayer book he mentioned something about church leadership teams that come together with one vision (community), but destroy each other on the way there.

Been there.
Jill

Yes! Yes! Yes! When I started directing the choir, my mentor said, you have to love the people more than you love the music. I think Jay is on the right track with reading where our church is at. They are hurting. We have to love them and figure out how to minister to them before we think about the next “cool” think we are going to plan for a service. This is what is all about. The greatest of these is LOVE! Someone famous once said that i think.
http://jaymckenney.wordpress.com Jay McKenney

that quote is absolutely….awesome
http://gr8-g8.blogspot.com eric lopez

YEAH!
http://www.valinemullen.com valine

While I may have my problems with Claiborne, I think he is on the right track here. It is important to have a vision for community, but it is even more important to not get caught up in the vision of it and to actually do it. Loving the people around us and building relationships with them is far more beneficial than sitting around and talking about it (which is what many churches get caught up in doing). However, loving people does not grant instant community, either. Bulding community takes time and can often be a struggle.. but it is worth fighting for.
http://www.thriven.org Jonathan Brink

Sounds like the Great Commission. ;-P