Timothy Travis, a devout Quaker, shares some interesting thoughts on the definition of community, as defined below; they are quite relevant to Know Your Neighbor.
Link: One Quaker Take: Universal Language -- Community as a Case Study.
1. Community can mean a gathered group--people who are brought (or come) together for the long term and for an increasingly intense and intimate relationship with one another (and with God). They learn together, support and forgive one another, are joined by a shared experience that is shaping them in a common way, through a common process, integrating them to something larger than they are.
2. Community can also mean a group of people who share an interest or concern of some kind, though, and whose relationship does not extend beyond that. The idea is not so much to grow together as to grow along side one another in regard to that shared concern or interest. People are not so much interested in one another as whole beings, or in growing toward one another or like one another as they are in one or a few aspects of one another's lives--the shared interest or concern.
As you think about Know Your Neighbor, and the difficulty of reaching beyond the comfortable cocoon of your primary community (which for most Mormons is our church community), it is helpful to realize that we actually are a part of many communities under the second definition.
We simply make decisions as to how strong our ties are to those communities, whether school, work, or neighborhood communities.
For those who want to strengthen ties to their secondary communities, Know Your Neighbor provides concrete steps (and encouragement) to do this.
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