Community

"If there is a Christian duty, task, or project, it is not to give to others, but to create and be in community in which people can give, contribute, and feel valuable. I understand Christian ministry to be the building of community in which people are encouraged to participate and contribute, to share and develop themselves, to be taken seriously, to take others seriously, to recognize and be recognized. In using Paul's metaphor of the body of Christ for community, this ministry would be considered resurrectional ministry-that is, the continual making, expanding, and enriching of community, the raising up of community through the ongoing task of including and empowering its members. In Exodus terms, it would be a ministry of moving out of the bondage, alienation, and separation into the freedom of whole community, into the freedom of being who we are and can be, with and because of others"

-Gary David Comstock, Gay Theology Without Apology