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Was Jesus really a rebel? Yes, but Jesus didn't rage against some abstract machine, he called people to an old way, the way revealed in the prophets. The way of doing life that Jesus championed had never been done because it had always been resisted. Jesus rocked the boat, and defied the status quo, modeling courageous resistance of the prevailing winds. But in our contemporary culture, rebellion is considered good in its own right - and a thrilling one at that. We're out to transgress. But we don't really have any agenda beyond rebellion itself. Was Jesus really a rebel? Sure. But our version of rebellion is a shallow impression.
- Paul Grant, Blessed are the Uncool (InterVarsity, 2006)

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If your church is serious about reaching the unchurched, you must be willing to put up with the people who have a lot of problems. Fishing is often messy and smelly. Many churches want the fish they catch to be already scaled, gutted, cleaned and cooked. That is why they never reach anyone.
- Rick Warren

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"It's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases."

-Bono

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Why do we keep hiding our deepest feelings from each other? We suffer much, but we also have great gifts of healing for each other. By hiding our pain, we also hide our ability to heal ... We are called to confess to each other and to forgive each other, and thus discover the abundant mercy of God. But at the same time, we're so terribly afraid that we may be wounded even more deeply. This fear keeps us prisoners, even when the prison has no walls! How radical Jesus' message of love is! How difficult! And how necessary!
- Henri Nouwen

Proverbs 28:13

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"God never threatens; the devil never warns."

-Oswald Chambers

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He was created of a mother whom He created. He was carried by hands that He formed. He cried in the manger in wordless infancy, He the Word, without whom all human eloquence is mute.
- Augustine

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Jesus promised the disciples three things--that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy and in constant trouble.
- G.K. Chesterton

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The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible - and achieve it, generation after generation.
-Pearl S. Buck

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The American church as a whole needs to move from selfish consumerism to unselfish contribution. Those are poles apart. To start with a woman who's most interested in how many diamonds she's got in her tennis bracelet, and move her to sit under a banyan tree holding an AIDS baby - that's a giant leap. People in this culture are trained to think about me, me, me; I've got to do what's best for me.

Even when we go to church, we have this consumer mentality. We say things like, "I didn't get anything out of the service today." Well, sorry. It wasn't for you; it was for God.

-Rick Warren

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Community is like a large mosaic. Each little piece seems so insignificant. One piece is bright red, another cold blue or dull green, another warm purple, another sharp yellow, another shining gold. Some look precious, others ordinary. Some look valuable, others worthless. Some look gaudy, others delicate. As individuals stones, we can do little with them except compare them and judge their beauty and value. When, however, all these little stones are brought together in one big mosaic portraying the face of Christ, who would ever question the importance of any one of them? If one of them, even the least spectacular one, is missing, the face is incomplete. Together in the one mosaic, each little stone is indispensable and makes a unique contribution to the glory of God. That's community, a fellowship of little people who together make God visible in the world.
- Henry Nouwen

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The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became man for no other purpose. - C.S. Lewis

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On the last day, Jesus will look us over not for medals, diplomas, or honors, but for scars. - Brennan Manning

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A live body is not one that never gets hurt, but one that can to some extent repair itself. In the same way a Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man who is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin over again after each stumble--because the Christ-life is inside him, repairing him all the time, enabling him to repeat (in some degree) the kind of voluntary death that Christ Himself carried out.
- C.S. Lewis

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The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have too much...it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

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HT: Jessica Hagy

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You cannot go on being a good egg forever. You must either
hatch or rot.
- C. S. Lewis

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Today I took our staff through the Real. Life. Exhibit at Northwest Medical Teams. At the end of the exhibit I was struck with this quote...

Pray as if everything depends on God. Work as if everything depends on you.
- Saint Augustine

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Art is a reflection of God's creativity, an evidence that we are made in the image of God.

- Francis Schaeffer

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We think if we can disperse adequate information, people will be convinced that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and turn to him. Those methods don't work any longer. I'm not sure they ever did. People aren't looking for information about God. They want to experience God, himself. Information leaves them bored, uninterested. Experience, especially the ultimate experience any human being can ever have, leaves them breathless. And that's exactly what we have to offer.
- Mark Tabb, Mission to Oz

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Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow mindedness. Broad, wholesome, charitable views cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth
-Mark Twain