“As an introverted person, I struggle even writing about community because I know how difficult it often is for me to walk across the room to converse with people. People often drain the energy out of me, and too often I prefer to protect myself rather than engage in relationships with people. For some of us who are more extroverted, community is a way of life, yet I wonder how intentional even the most extroverted person is about making community a holiness-shaping thing. Community with God’s people ultimately shapes us to reflect more of who God is.”

“We often spend so much time reacting to religious traditions or a religious culture that we have little energy left to cultivate a proactive spiritual path. Even among "believing" people there is often more critique and conversation about "the church" or parochial issues than honest engagement with the ways of the master- how Jesus lived and what he taught. Perhaps we have been too easily pleased by our over educated ability to analyze and deconstruct. Rather than being skeptical why couldn't our collective sense of unrest about religion and spiritual community motivate us to be more curious and engaged”

“Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial.”

“Some people tried to hurt us to protect themselves, their family and communities...This was one of the consequences of civil war. People stopped trusting each other, and every stranger became an enemy. Even people who knew you became extremely careful about how they related or spoke to you.”

“Peoples, populations, native populaces, tribes and religious communities are not nations, even though they are often spoken of as such.”

“A person is a person through other persons.None of us comes into the world fully formed. We would not know how to think, or walk, or speak, or behave as human beings unless we learned it from other human beings. We need other human beings in order to be human. I am because other people are. A person is entitled to a stable community life, and the first of these communities is the family.”