the encounter

“Community is the place where the person you least want to live with always lives.” – Henri Nouwen

There are times when community gets tough. When jumping out of the (fellow)ship seems way easier than sticking it out. But when we abandon ship because it holds people we don’t like, we also abandon community.

“Community has little to do with mutual compatibility. Similarities in educational background, psychological make-up, or social status can bring us together, but they can never be the basis for community. Community is grounded in God, who calls us together and not to the attractiveness of people to each other. There are many groups that have been formed to protect their own interests, to defend their own status, or to promote their own causes, but none of these is a Christian community. Instead of breaking through the walls of fear and creating new space for God, they close themselves to real or imaginary intruders. The mystery of community is precisely that it embraces all people, whatever their individual differences may be and allows them to live together as brothers and sisters of Christ and sons and daughters of his heavenly Father.” – Nouwen

It’s easy to build community when everyone looks like you, talks like you and believes the same things as you — but is that really the type of community we’ve been called to be a part of?

How have you struggled with these barriers? How have you overcome them?

“Love means loving the unlovable – or it is no virtue at all.” – GK Chesterton

Tags: building, community, GK Chesterton, hard, Henri Nouwen, love