From Church to Community
New Forms of Community
We are a community in an age of individualism… and new forms of human groups
Listening to another person is an expression of ἀγάπη – unconditional love, the love we receive from God, the love celebrated in Paul’s poetry in First Corinthians chapter 13. It is a form of spiritual hospitality, inviting the other’s experience into your experience. It is a biblical thing to do: Jesus listens to Nicodemus and the Woman at the Well (John 3 and 4); Paul walks around the streets of Athens, listening, before he preaches (Acts 17); in Ecclesiastes we read that “to draw near to listen is better than the sacrifice offered by fools” (5: 1); James writes “Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak” (1: 19). In worship services, after a reading from Scripture, we often quote the repeated line in Revelation 2 and 3: “Let anyone who has an ear, listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.”
Download the full document at Conference Presentation 2 – Toward New Forms of Spiritual Community