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 a Man for no other purpose.— C. S. Lewis
From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories that I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity,
Thou, who wouldst give not sign, deliver me.
Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,
O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle's eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.
"We are generally the better persuaded by the reasons we discover ourselves than by those given to us by others." -Blaise Pascal
"Prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God: the proud, the avaricious, the self-righteous, are in that danger."C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
Ok, so it was very silly of me to think that I could possibly unpack what I heard in the last 24 hours on a blog. It is just not possible. What I will do is try to write out some very brief and pithy main ideas that I am taking away from from specific people who I heard at this conference.
Gary Gaddini- "A missional focus is the greatest discipleship tool for the church."
Brian Mills- God is at always at work everywhere, we must seek him and join him."
Reggie McNeal- "Church is not a "what", church is a "who".
John Jenkins- "The greatest hindrance to the next move of God is the last move of God."
Ed Stetzer- Talked way to fast and said way too much to take away any one thing. He posted his entire notes from his talk at Ed Stetzer.com
Nancy Ortberg- "Innovators should have a great list of failures. We must be cautious not to criticise new ideas too soon or too quickly."
Bob Roberts- "Where Hell is breaking loose, God is already there, so let's join Him."
Kent Schaffer- Regarding the use of technology: "At the end of the day the thing that matters is relationship."
Mark DeYmaz- "1 in 2 people in the United States will not be White by 2047 (this according to the US Census Bureau)."
John Bishop- "87% of churches in the USA have plateaued or are declining in members"
Greg Surrat- "How will the attractional model of church hold up in a resource poor environment?"
“From 1900 until 1989, U.S. population tripled while the use of raw materials multiplied 17 times. With less than 5 percent of world population, the U.S. uses one-third of the world’s oil, 23 percent of the coal, 27 percent of the aluminum, and 19 percent of the copper. Our per capita use of energy, metals, minerals, forest products, fish, grains, meat and even fresh water dwarfs that of people living in the developing world. “
Sustainable Consumption: Why Consumption matters, Dave Tilford
"...solitude molds self-righteous people into gentle, caring, forgiving persons who are so deeply convinced of their own great sinfulness and so fully aware of God's even greater mercy that their life itself becomes ministry. In such a ministry there is hardly any difference left between doing and being. When we are filled with God's merciful presence, we can do nothing other than minister because our whole being witnesses to the light that has come into the darkness."
The Way of the Heart p.22
"That is the practical question in ministry. If you under-contextualize your ministry and message, no one's life will be changed because they'll be too confused about what you are saying. But if you over-contextualize your ministry and your message, no one's life will be changed because you won't really be confronting them and calling them to make deep change."You can find the rest of the interview at DashHouse.com
"If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation it must be by other means than any now being used. If the church in the second half of [the twentieth] century is to recover from the injuries she suffered in the first half, there must appear a new type of preacher. The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting. Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne. When he comes (and I pray God there will not be one but many) he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom."
A.W. Tozer
"The world is overcome not through destruction, but through reconciliation. Not ideals, nor programs, nor conscience, nor duty, nor responsibility, nor virtue, but only God's perfect love can encounter reality and overcome it. Nor is it some universal idea of love, but rather the love of God in Jesus Christ, a love genuinely lived, that does this."
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Meditations on the Cross
I wanted to share another Tozer quote. Here he is speaking of our tendency to consider some things as sacred and others as secular. Then he paints for us a picture of how we should live.
"We come unconsciously to recognize two sets of actions. The first are performed with a feeling of satisfaction and a firm assurance that they are pleasing to God. These are the sacred acts and they are usually thought to be prayer, Bible reading, hymn singing, church attendance and such other acts as spring directly from faith. They may be known by the fact that they have no direct relation to this world, and would have no meaning except as faith shows us another world, "an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Corinthians 5:1).
Over against these sacred acts are the secular ones. They include all of the ordinary activities of life which we share with the sons and daughters of Adam:eating, sleeping, working, looking after the need of the body and performing our dull and prosaic duties here on earth. These we often do reluctantly and with many misgivings, often apologizing to God for what we consider a waste of time and strength. The upshot of this is that we are uneasy most of the time. We go about our common tasks with a feeling of deep frustration, telling ourselves pensively that there's a better day coming when we shall slough off this earthly shell and be bothered no more with the affairs of this world....
....The sacred-secular antithesis has no foundation in the New Testament. Without doubt, a more perfect understanding of Christian truth will deliver us from it.
The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is our perfect example, and He knew no divided life. In the presence of His Father He lived on earth without strain from babyhood to His death on the cross. God accepted the offering of His total life, and made no distinction between act and act. "I do always those things that please him," was His brief summary of His own life as it related to the Father (John 8:29)"
-The Pursuit of God, (Pgs. 112-113)
The whites were always trying to make the Indians give up their life and live like white men-go to farming, work hard and do as they did- and the Indians did not know how to do that, and did not want to anyway…. If the Indians had tried to make the whites live like them, the whites would have resisted, and it was the same way with many Indians.
-Wamditanka (Big Eagle) of the Santee Sioux
Although wrongs have been done me I live in hopes. I have not got two hearts….Now we are together again to make peace. My shame is as big as the earth, although I will do what my friends advise me to do. I once thought that I was the only man that persevered to be the friend of the white man, but since they have come and cleaned out our lodges, horses, and everything else, it is hard for me to believe white men anymore.
-Motavato (Black Kettle) of the Southern Cheyennes
Whose voice was first sounded on this land? The voice of the red people who had but bows and arrows….What has been done in my country I did not want and did not ask for it; white people going through my country….When the white man comes in my country he leaves a trail of blood behind him….I have two mountains in that country-the Black Hills and the Big Horn Mountain. I want the Great Father (US President) to make no roads through them. I have told these things three times; now I have come here to tell them the fourth time.
-Mahpiua Luta (Red Cloud) of the Oglala Sioux
I don’t want to run over the mountains anymore; I want to make a big treaty….I will keep my word until the stones melt….God made the white man and God made the Apache, and the Apache has just as much right to the country as the white man. I want to make a treaty that will last, so that both can travel over the country and have no trouble.
-Delshay f the Tonto Apache
If it had not been for the massacre, there would have been a great many people here now; but after that massacre who could have stood it? When I made peace with Lieutenant Whitman my heart was very big and happy. The people of Tucson and San Xavier must be crazy. They acted as though they had neither heads nor hearts…they must have a thirst for our blood….These Tucson people write for the papers and tell their own story. The Apaches have no one to tell their story.
-Eskiminzin of the Aravaipa Apaches
No white person or persons shall be permitted to settle upon or occupy any portion of the territory, or without the consent of the Indians to pass through the same.
-Treaty of 1868
The Great Father told the commissioners that al the Indians had the rights in the Black Hills, and that whatever conclusion the Indians themselves should come to would be respected….I am an Indian and am looked on by the whites as a foolish man; but it must be because I follow the advice of the white man.
Shunka Witko (Fool Dog)
The whites told only one side. Told it to please themselves. Told much that is not true. Only his own best deeds, only th worst deeds of the Indians, has the white man told.
-Yellow Wolf of the Nez Perces
I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with my eyes still young. And I can see that something else died therein the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream…the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.
-Black Elk
10 When you make a loan of any kind to your neighbor, do not go into his house to get what he is offering as a pledge. 11 Stay outside and let the man to whom you are making the loan bring the pledge out to you. 12 If the man is poor, do not go to sleep with his pledge in your possession. 13 Return his cloak to him by sunset so that he may sleep in it. Then he will thank you, and it will be regarded as a righteous act in the sight of the LORD your God.14 Do not take advantage of a hired man who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother Israelite or an alien living in one of your towns. 15 Pay him his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and is counting on it. Otherwise he may cry to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin.
16 Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.
17 Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge. 18 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there. That is why I command you to do this.
19 When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. 20 When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow. 21 When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow. 22 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this.
Deuteronomy 24
“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” - Ben Franklin, famously
“Put no trust in the benefits to accrue from
early rising, as set forth by the infatuated Franklin …” - Mark Twain
We fear so deeply what we think other people see in us, so we talk in order to straighten out their understanding. ... One of the fruits of silence is the freedom to let our justification rest entirely with God.
- Richard Foster
from Celebration of Discipline
"The greatest proof of Christianity for others is not how far a man can logically analyze his reasons for believing, but how far in practice he will stake his life on his belief."
T.S. Eliot
Posts
All Comments
