Community is the essence of what a good life is I think.
Whether the community is based around a church or an organization or just a bunch of people who share a common interest in building a life together.
One really cool example is right behind the coffee shop I am sitting in right now.
It is a community that was built with the intentional purpose of building a neighborhood where people will naturally interact together. It has community Gardens and a public workshop and all the houses face towards the center common area. Also the Garages are not attached so that people have to go out their front door and walk past all the other houses so they will see their neighbors frequently.
My mind keeps twisting and turning around the idea of community...
Thinking what is the point of having a church if you do not have a community surrounding it. Why do people develop churches with the purpose of attracting people from all over the city instead of developing pocket churches in different parts of town so that people will be staying in their communities instead of going out of them to go to church.
One of my friends said this weekend that in reality you should be able to walk to the church you go to or at the most take a little jaunt on a bike to get there. Church is not about the message or the doctrine as it is about the relationship you form with the other people there.
People who are not already in church will be attracted by the community they see, not by a perfect message or a stellar building (well maybe but the community will get them to stay.)
I have talked to people before about Christian communities but really it should be about people investing in the community that we live in and then building a community of people of all creeds not hiding away from the world.
