embracing community

• What does the word community mean to you? Is it just some empty buzz word banded about by politicians or perhaps you associate it with other words like community swimming baths or community allotment.
  
  
• I love this quote from the movie star William Baldwin. He’s obviously gone a lot deeper in his thinking behind the meaning of community. Community really is about people and how they exist together. Your family at home is its own little community. Your church is a community of believers and your school is a learning community; a place where everyone comes together to get educated or to educate others.
  
  
• Community is everywhere, in many different forms. How can you change all of your communities? How, like William Baldwin’s quote, can you improve the standard of living and quality of life where you live? How can you make real changes to your school or college environment? Who can you get alongside to achieve this?
  
  
• This week, begin drawing up a plan about how you want one particular community of yours changed. Start with your desired ‘end product’ and work backwards. For example: Your fed-up with the fact that your park is an absolute mess. Whenever it gets re-painted, along comes someone and graffitis it all over again. So, instead of jumping up and down on the spot getting mad, change something!
  
  
• Write to your council to ask about whether a Community Support Officer or Police Officer has been asked to supervise the park at certain times. Write to your local resident’s association and see what action they’re taking about this. Make a big noise in a respectful, polite way, and then pray! Pray about how God can use you to make a change. Get some mates together, offer to clean up the graffiti for the council, get your photo taken doing it and send it to the local paper. Go public on your attempts to make a difference to your community, and be willing to speak up about Jesus if anyone asks you the reason why you want your community to look and feel like a better place.