Breezy Christianty

"My power is faint and low

Till I have learned to serve;

It wants the needed fire to glow,

It wants the breeze to serve...."

- George Matheson Hymn

Hysterical Christians

"There are Christians who have hysterical reactions, as if the world would have slipped out of God's hands.... But we believe in history; the world is not a roll of the dice going  toward chaos.....

Take away the sadness from our faces. We are not in a game of chance...."

- Father Luis Espinal. Assassinated March 22, 1980 in La Paz, Bolivia, by paramilitairy forces. One of his last writings.

A Church That Understands Culture

“...... "the destiny of the world” hinges on “the Church’s dialogue with the cultures of our time.....
A faith which does not become culture is a faith which has not been fully received, not thoroughly thought through, not fully lived out.”


- Polish Pope John Paul II on establishing the Pontifical Council for Culture in 1982

A Leader With A Compass & Magnet

Leader - "....a person with a magnet in his heart and a compass in his head” ?

- Howard Hendricks

Something The Bible Never Claims

"Theologian John Baillie once remarked, “The New Testament does not say, ‘You shall know the rules, and by them you shall be bound,’ but, ‘You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’”

- Leonard Sweet. AquaChurch.  2.0

Let God Out Of The Bible.

“Amanda” was a six-year-old Sunday school student, the daughter of a county sheriff. On “Presentation Sunday” at her local church in Boulder, Colorado, she was given her very own Bible. During coffee time in the fellowship hall, a member of the church congratulated her and asked if he could see her Bible. “OK. But don’t open it.” “Don’t open it? But why shouldn’t I open it?” “You’ll let God out.”
 Open the Scriptures.
 Let God out."
- Leonard Sweet. AquaChurch 2.0

Fragile Books

“If writing is put on to parchment it can last for a thousand years, but how long will printing something on paper last? At the most a paper book could last for two hundred years.”

- Johannes Trithemius, abbot of Sponheim, denounced printed books in 1492.

The Bible Says It Your Way It Seems

"Three equivalent words drive today’s hearer up the wall when debating moral and ethical issues: “The Bible says.” People know how bureaucracies of church, state, and corporation—which are in love with labels and have lost track of people—filter what “The Bible says” into forms favorable to themselves."
-Leonard Sweet. AquaChurch 2.0

Argued Bible

"There is something terribly wrong when we argue about the Bible more and enjoy it less."

—Clark H. Pinnock

A Crucifixion Fetish Magic

"People could be affixed to crosses with ropes, but Nails seem to have been more common. Indeed, the nails that might be retrieved after a crucifixion were sometimes used in magical or medicinal potions, suggesting that some may have regarded the whole event as possessing, at some prearticulate level, a kind of dark potency."

- N.T. Wright. The Day The Revolution Began

The Massive Crucifixion

"The real life Spartacus, who led a major slave revolt, met his end about a hundred years before Jesus. Many died in the final battle, about six thousand of his followers were crucified all along the 130 so miles of the Appian Way from Rome to Capua (inland from Naples), making it roughly one cross every forty yards (Appian, Civil Wars 1.120)

- N.T. Wright. The Day The Revolution Began.