I think there's maybe a thing about a community, a religious institution, acting as a community? That is to say, that the reason the Church is more effective than just a bunch of friends who decide to get together and volunteer at the foodbank is because this kind of theoretical and spiritual stuff is going on in conjunction. (As well as creating beautiful things and a context that people want to belong to so that they continue to have the motivation to be doing the practical volunteering, so the music and the architecture and all the rest.) So when I say that Christianity is good at this I don't necessarily mean every individual Christian, I mean the whole context seems to be really well geared to nurture an exceptionally high proportion of kinds of people who do volunteer practically, if that makes sense?
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