Eternal Community

Ok, I am attempting not to bombard you with quotes from this book I am reading, but I am finding it to be exceptionally challenging to prohibit myself from blogging every other paragraph. The only thing keeping me from doing that is then I would be forced to also include the paragraphs I have skipped, and the next thing you know I would be blogging the whole book. And even though Dietrich Bonhoeffer probably wouldn't mind, I am fairly certain that blogging entire books isn't allowed by someone, somewhere.

Nevertheless, I need to share this quote on community. A light bulb went on over my head as I was reading it. I have often wanted to find a way to describe to those who are newer to church the reality of true community. This explanation fueled that understanding, and I couldn't wait to share it with someone.

"Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us. This is true not merely at the beginning, as though in the course of time something else were to be added to our community; it remains so for all the future and to all eternity. I have community with others and I shall continue to have it only through Jesus Christ. The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, and for all eternity."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Life Together)

Come to Edgewood Baptist Church... this is what we are trying to do.