If you and your church were to disappear off the face of the earth tomorrow, would anyone in the community around you notice you were gone? And if the community did even notice would they say 'we are really glad they are gone', or 'we are really going to miss them'?
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of a community's awareness of and appreciation for an individual's contributions.
Timothy Keller's quote challenges individuals and churches to reflect on their impact within their communities. It raises the question of whether their presence is valued or if they are overlooked, thereby prompting a deep examination of the relationships and contributions that define a meaningful existence within a communal setting.
In practice
During a community meeting, this quote can reinforce the importance of the church's outreach programs.
Falling in love in a Christian way is to say,'I am excited about your future and I want to be part of getting you there. I'm signing up for the journey with you. Would you sign up for the journey to my true self with me? It's going to be hard but I want to get there.
Only in Jesus Christ do we see how the untamable, infinite God can become a baby and a loving Savior. On the cross we see how both the love and the holiness of God can be fulfilled at once.
All human problems are ultimately symptoms, and our separation from God is the cause.
While your character flaws may have created mild problems for other people, they will create major problems for your spouse and your marriage.
To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.
God's Kingdom is "present in its beginnings, but still future in its fullness. This guards us from an under-realized eschatology (expecting no change now) and an over-realized eschatology (expecting all change now). In this stage, we embrace the reality that while we're not yet what we will be, we're also no longer what we used to be.
We have essentially gone from being communities that were policed by people from the communities to being communities that are policed by strangers, and that's no longer a community: that's an area that's under siege.
When we accept dismissive judgments of our community we stop having generous hope for it. We cease to be capable of serving its best interests.
One of the pleasant things about small town life is that everyone, whether rich or poor, liked or disliked, has some kind of a role and place in the community. I never felt that living in a city - as I once did for a couple of years.
Curation comes up when people realize that it isn’t just about information seeking, it’s also about synchronizing a community.
Where there is not community, trust, respect, ethical behavior are difficult for the young to learn and for the old to maintain.
My view is that good community management is like having good municipal government: You should be able to have dissenting opinions and so on, freedom of speech, but your grandmother should also be able to walk down the street at night without having to worry about getting mugged.
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