A cool quote posted by Len Hjalmarson on his blog at:

http://www.nextreformation.com

“We will only stay in community if we have gone through the passage from choosing community to knowing that we have been chosen for community.”

That makes so much sense in light of what we experience in American Christianity. We need to move away from our egocentric, consumer-based perspective that community and “church” are for me, to meet my needs. I’m so sick of hearing from people that they are leaving their church because the messages aren’t speaking to them, the worship isn’t anointed anymore, the children’s program isn’t big or dynamic enough, the youth program doesn’t meet their kids’ needs, there’s no singles’ group, blah, blah, blah.

We have got to come to the biblical perspective that I have been chosen by God for community. I am its servant, called by God to lift, encourage and build up others in the community.

Listen to what Paul says:

“In Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”
Romans 12:5

“Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God.”
Colossians 1:24-25

You and I have been chosen for community — whether its the community of marriage, family, friends, work, school, or neighborhood. Wherever God has planted us, we have been chosen for that community and we must love and serve them as Christ would.