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Lord of What?

Nero did not throw Christians to the lions because they confessed that ‘Jesus is Lord of my heart.’ It was rather because they confessed that ‘Jesus is Lord of all,’ meaning that Jesus was Lord even over the realm Caesar claimed as his domain of absolute authority.

–Michael Bird

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Marketing the Cross

Seems the marketing strategy of the church these days is: “You can have the life you’ve always wanted.”
But who would want a life that looks like a cross?

–Rodney Reeves, Spirituality According to Paul (33)

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A New Year’s Quote

We will open the book.  Its pages are blank.
We are going to put words on them ourselves.
The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.
—Edith Lovejoy Pierce

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There’s Treason in The Season

This Spoken Word video by Odd Thomas is a great meditation for Christmas Eve. At the end is a portion of a sermon from the early church father, Augustine. I’ve included it here as well:

Man’s maker was made man,
that He, Ruler of the stars,
might nurse at His mother’s breast;
that the Bread might hunger,
the Fountain thirst,
the Light sleep,
the Way be tired on its journey;
that Truth might be accused of false witnesses,
the Teacher be beaten with whips,
the Foundation be suspended on wood;
that Strength might grow weak;
that the Healer might be wounded;
that Life might die.
-Augustine

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=s6-XtFfKVM4]

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The Power of Story

Neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society, rather you must tell a new powerful tale, one so persuasive that it sweeps away the old myths and becomes the preferred story, one so inclusive that it gathers all the bits of our past and our present into a coherent whole, one that even shines some light into the future so that we can take the next step… If you want to change a society, then you have to tell an alternative story.

-Ivan Illich, Austrian philosopher

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What We Should Be Talking About

Each generation has to wrestle afresh with the question of Jesus… we should discover more and more of who Jesus was and is, precisely in order to be equipped to engage with the world that he came to save. And this is a task for the whole church.

-N.T. Wright (The Challenge of Jesus, p. 31)

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The Apostolic Gospel Tradition

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received:
that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,
he was buried,
he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
and he appeared to Peter, then to the twelve.

1 Corinthians 15:3-5

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SHUT UP (please)!

Intelligent silence is 
 the mother of prayer,
 freedom from bondage,
 custodian of zeal,
 a guard on our thoughts...
 a companion of stillness,
 the opponent of dogmatism,
 a growth of knowledge,
 a hand to shape contemplation,
 hidden progress,
 the secret journey upward.

      -John Climacus

 

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Spirituality

Spirituality is not a formula; it is not a test.
 It is a relationship.

Spirituality is not about competency;
 it is about intimacy.

Spirituality is not about perfection;
 it is about connection.

The way of spirituality begins where we are now
 in the mess of our lives.

 -Mike Yaconelli