Christian Community is….
November 14, 2008
The second discipline in Nouwen’s rubric of moving from solitude to community to ministry is obviously community. I have been profoundly struck by this description of community by William Stringfellow in his book “An ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land’ . The Northumbria Community claims to have drawn inspiration from this quote.
Dynamic and erratic, spontaneous and radical, audacious and immature, committed if not altogether coherent. Ecumenically open and often experimental, visible here and there, now and then but unsettled institutionally. Almost monastic in nature but most of all enacting a fearful hope for society.’
How does this description for Christian community strike you? How does it measure up with your experience with Christian community/church life? What do you like about his description? Is there anything that bothers you about it?
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3 Comments to “Christian Community is….”
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Found this a couple weeks back..
http://nextreformation.com/?cat=31
I love everything about it. Intelligently meaty.
It would be good to deconstruct it element by element and talk us through it.
I would love to see community described as Eikon of the Trinity (The Original Community of Love). The Eikonic community gathers around, partakes of, participates in, proclaims, lives out, the life of Christ.
I really like phrase you use, “Eikon of the Trinity”. Your reply causes me to look back at Stringfellow and compare what we understand about the Trinity to his description of community. Dare we describe the Trinity as “dynamic and erratic….”