It is surely a fact of inexhaustible significance that what our Lord left behind Him was not a book, nor a creed, nor a system of thought, nor a rule of life, but a visible community. He committed the entire work of salvation to that community. It was not that a community gathered round an idea, so that the idea was primary and the community secondary. It was that a community called together by the deliberate choice of the Lord Himself, and re-created in Him, gradually sought - and is seeking - to make explicit who He is and what He has done. The actual community is primary; the understanding of what it is comes second.
The deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear Brothers [and Sisters], we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.
Photos from Hope Newport 2011 which happened last Thursday - Friday. The Alway team cleaned up and repainted some basketball courts in the centre of the Alway estate, and hosted a family fun day and BBQ on the Saturday. A pretty exhausting, slightly dramatic, but altogether great three days.
Around 250 volunteers from about 10 (possibly more) churches took part in Hope 2011, doing projects in 6 different areas of the city, in support with Newport City Council, Newport City Homes, Communities First Teams, local Community Associations, Newport Youth Service and others.
The Alway Project - Annual Report 2011
A few weeks ago, we threw together our annual report for the project in Alway over the past year. You can view it here to see the different work we’ve been involved in.
Also, in the last few days we have properly formalised a partnership with the Streetspace Network - a network of innovative youth and community work projects run by Frontier Youth Trust in partnership with the Church Missionary Society.
We’re very excited about the incredible support and training that partnering with Streetspace will bring to the work in Alway.
How to Build Community
From letsdrawmore:
Found this in an Alastair McIntosh book I’m reading for a project and thought I’d type it up on my ace new typewriter to share. It’s good stuff.
(via lilley)
Christian Community in a Consumerist Culture
My dissertation for those who were interested in reading it.
Christian Community in a Consumerist Culture - James Henley
Real freedom exists for relationships. It requires that we move into deeper intimacy of a relationship that puts confinements on us. That the soul grows not by freeing and escaping but by committing and being selfless and dying within.
Everything in this world tries to pull us away from community, pushes us to choose ourselves over others, to choose independence over interdependence, to choose great things over small things, to choose going fast alone over going far together.
