If men and women today began by the thousands to experience the depths of Jesus Christ in a transforming way, there would simply be no place for their expression of experience to fit into present-day straitjackets of Christianity.
Gordon Cosby
All of us had best find out what we really want to do and start doing it, with whatever it involves. If you have to give up your responsibility, give it up; if the church goes to pieces, so be it. But we must find out what we really want to do because nothing else is going to help anybody.
We moderate and polish the world's thinking, and name it Christian. The church embodies the upside-down kingdom. Whatever the world admires is probably not good, according to kingdom values. The church is always anti-empire.
What the church does is provide a place where pain can be touched and where the vision for a new world can be lifted up and held before people.
At the heart of each of us is a compelling hunger for ways to live and be in relationship that are genuine. Too often we choose ways that enslave rather than free us, and so it is with churches as well.
What the world longs for are people and churches who have found their authentic nature, who bear such a striking resemblance to Jesus that people sense they have encountered him when they encounter us.
How to facilitate such an encounter