This is my current understanding of the idea of the word 'community' as we use it in the Constellation
The development of a community
Community is a word that has come to mean different things to different people.
And the danger is that it becomes so many things to so many different people, that the word itself means nothing.
The idea of community sits at the heart of the Constellation. And so we should take care to make clear what it means to us.
At its most broad, a community is nothing more than a group that shares 'something'.
At its weakest, the group may share nothing more than a physical location (perhaps, a commuter town outside a large city).
At its strongest, the individuals in the group may devote their lives to a shared idea and to each other (for example, a religious community).
And between these two extremes there is an infinite range of possibilities for sharing.
If we accept this idea, we can suggest that communities evolve as the extent to which they share broadens and deepens.
The first stage in this evolution is the recognition of a shared interest.
This shared interest could be based around location, but it does not have to be. So the dormitory town could perhaps recognise that it needs a better bus service to the large town where lots of people work.
But the community could be based around an enthusiasm for singing and the people who make up that community could be made up of people from a range of 'physical' communities.
The next step in the progression of the community is the recognition of a shared objective.
So when a group goes beyond complaining that the bus service to the nearest town is dreadful and they decide that they are going to do something about it, they have a shared objective.
(In England, where I live, people would stop saying, "Somebody should do something about that dreadful bus service!' and would start to say, "We are going to do something about that bus service!")
The consequence of a shared objective is naturally shared action. And shared action is Local Response.
The role of the Constellation is to stimulate communities to move along the path from shared interest to shared objective to shared action. And the Community Life Competence process is the tool that communities use to do that. Since we work only by invitation, this means that there is at least one member of the community that sees the benefit of moving along this path.
You can more background to these ideas at 'Background to 'community'