Oppressed Church

“In the world you can miss it ten times and hit right once and they’re impressed. You can get it right nine times in the church and miss it once and you’re oppressed.” 

~ Larry Randolph

When I Don't Want To Fight Your Battles

"He nevertheless meets people who ask him to fight battles that are not his own, on battlefields that he does not know, or which do not interest him. They want to involve the Warrior of the Light in contests that are important to them, but not to him.

(Paulo Coelho. Warrior Of The Light : Short Notes On Accepting Failure, Embracing Life....)

About where I'm at the last decade. These other things are good too, just not my battle, not my interest, not my priority.
Therefore, when belonging is hinged on conformity and immersion into your plan, it is you who make render it very hard to belong. When we get labeled for how we conform, or not, to your vision or plan,  it is you who make it very hard to belong.  Much manipulation takes place there.

When I try to live it out, all hell breaks loose

"As a writer, I live in daily awareness of how much easier it is to edit a book than edit a life. When I write about what I believe and how I should live, it sounds neat and orderly. When I try to live it out, all hell breaks loose."

(Philip Yance)

There Is Crack in Everything

Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in."

Leonard Cohen

The Way Rules To Live By, Through right Relationships To Live For.

The Way to save the world  is not through more rules to live by, but through right relationship to live for. People are fast loosing the art of being with one another."

(Leonard Sweet. What Matters Most: How We Got The Point But Missed The Person) 

Church Ain't What It Used to Be?

"There was obviously flexability about the order of service in the Early Church which is now totally lacking. There was clearly no settled order at all. Everything was informal enough to allow any man who felt that he had a message to give to give it. It may well be that we set far too much store on dignity and order nowadays. It may well be that we have become the slaves of orders of service. The really notable thing about an early Church service must have been that almost everyone came with a sense that he had both the privilege and the obligation of contributing something to it. A man did not come with the sole intention of being a passive listener. He did not come only to receive, he came also to give. Obviously this had its dangers for it is clear that in Corinth there were those who were too fond of the sound of their own voices: but nonetheless the Church must have been in those days much more the real possession of the ordinary Christian. It may well be that the Church lost something when she delegated so much to the professional ministry and left so little to the ordinary Church member; and it may well be that the blame lies not with the ministry for annexing those rights. but with the laity for abandoning them, because it is all too true that there are many Church members whose attitude is that they think far more of what the Church can do for them than of what they can do for the Church. and who are very ready to criticize what is done but very unready to take any share in doing the Church's work themselves."

(William Barclay. Letter To The Corinthians)

Muted By Your Leadership?

"How often do we lose our true way of missioning in the world because "mere followers" have become muted by the remote control of church leadership?"

(Leonard Sweet. I Am A Follower)

Never Been Anywhere

"The poor rarely travel. Like us, you have probably traveled widely, at least within your own country, if not to other nations. Aside from occasional bus trips to cities to visit with relatives , and visits to markets in bigger nearby villages, the poor are likely to live and die in a single place, isolated from most of the world around them. As a result, they’re rarely aware of the new ideas and new opportunities that surface so frequently in today’s fast-changing world."

(Paul Polak & Mal Warwick The Business Solution To Poverty)