Quote #1

Hi MEP RAs!

I am so excited to see your posts from the summer so far!  I am ridiculously excited to see all of you again in a few short weeks!

I am working in the Student Life office this summer, and am working on writing a "Manuel of Community Life" which basically means that I have to read about community all summer...oh darn :)

Oh also: The RDs and I got to go to a conference at Taylor University!  We learned a lot about student development and hung out with RDs from all over the country.

They had a photobooth!

It has gotten me thinking about this fall, and I have about 1,000,000 ideas for you guys!  Can't wait!

Anyway,  one of the books that I have been working with is Bonhoeffer's "Life Together" I found some quotes that got my attention.  I thought I might share some of the them with you...

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments area :)

"Because God already laid the only foundation of our fellowship, because God has bound us together in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ, long before we entered into common life with them, we entered into that life not as demanders but as thankful receptors.   We thank God for what he has done for us.   We thank God for giving us brethren who live by his call, by his forgiveness and by his promise.  We do not complain of what God does not give us; we rather thank God for what he does give us daily." 

"Only he who gives thanks for the little things receives the big things." 

"How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from him the little things? If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even when there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us in Jesus Christ." 

"The Christian community is not spiritual sanatorium (Hospital).  The person who comes into a fellowship because he is running away from himself is misusing it for the sake of diversion, no matter how spiritual his diversion may appear. 

He is really not seeking community at all, but only distraction which will allow him to forget his loneliness for a brief time, thea very alienation that creates the deadly isolation of man. The disintegration of communication and all genuine experience, and finally resignation and spiritual death are the results of such attempts to find a cure." 

Miss you guys!  

Can't wait to hear your thoughts!!!