I've Seen You!

"I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen." — John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

Sympathy Hungers

".... and if any ever went away disappointed or hungry from my house when they found me at home, they may depend upon it that I sympathized with them at least."
( Henry David Thoreau. Walden )

Deactivation Of The Church. It's here!

"The public now believes that ministry is something that only paid professionals do. Most churchgoers assume it’s their job to go to church, sit passively, and watch the professionals on the stage perform ministry. Being salt and light in the community? That’s the pastor’s job. Introducing children to the God who loves them? That’s the children’s minister’s job. Helping teenagers navigate questions of faith? That’s the youth worker’s job. Out in the world, if the topic of faith comes up, churchgoers often say, “You really ought to talk to my pastor about that.”

Has the Body of Christ become convinced that it is deaf, dumb and deactivated?"

(Have We Become Too Professional? Thom Schultz. Churchleaders.com)

Slavery Is Not A Punishable Offense In India

"Of course, such slavery is clearly against the law in India. So, how is it that millions of people can be held in slavery, and why does virtually no one ever go to jail for these crimes?"
(The Locust Effect: Why The End Of Povery Requires The End Of Violence. Gary A. Haugen & Victor Boutros)

Let's Abolish Slavery. OH, I Thought We Already Did That!

"There are more slaves in the world today (best estimate—27 million) than were extracted from Africa during 400 years of the transatlantic slave trade. And there are more slaves in India today than in any other country in the world.

For answers, Sashmeeta would take me to meet with the former slaves released from the brick factory, to hear their stories, and to learn how it could be that, seven years later, the man who allegedly abducted, enslaved, raped, and tortured them continues to walk the streets of Bangalore utterly free and unafraid."

(The Locust Effect: Why The End Of Povery Requires The End Of Violence. Gary A. Haugen & Victor Boutros)

No Visitors

"As for men, they will hardly fail one anywhere. I had more visitors while I lived in the woods than at any other period in my life; I mean that I had some." (Henry David Thoreau. Walden)

A Dinner Parade To Drive Me Home.

"So easy is it, though many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in the place of the old. You need not rest your reputation on the dinners you give. For my own part, I was never so effectually deterred from frequenting a man's house, by any kind of Cerberus whatever, as by the parade one made about dining me, which I took to be a very polite and roundabout hint never to trouble him so again. I think I shall never revisit those scenes."
(Henry David Thoreau. Walden)

The Sorrow Within Our Enemies

“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”
(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Put Aside Nonessentials And Dogma And Look At Jesus?

"Discipleship demands that we put aside all nonessentials, stop playing word games, and come to the essence of things. The essence for the follower of Jesus lies in living by faith and not by religion. Living by faith consists in constantly redefining and reaffirming our identity with Jesus, measuring ourselves against him—not measuring him against our church dogmas and local heroes."

(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

Never Pray For Humility Unless You Are Truly Ready

A Russian starets once said,

“If you pray for humility, be careful. Humility is learned through humiliations."

(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus )

Thinning Church Membership Is A "Purifying Dawn"

"True disciples see Christianity as a way of life on and off camera. Obviously, it will not appeal to everyone. The ranks of church membership will be thinned. Christians will look differently and act differently from other people because they are different. The name of Jesus no longer will be mouthed casually or the Christian mysteries profaned. The scandals that recently have rocked the body of Christ will be seen in perspective as a “purifying dawn” heralding the daylight of lived faith in the living God."
( Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus )

Contradicting Threat.....

"A Christian living in the world but not of the world is a sign of contradiction to the compromises that many within the church have settled for. The disciple of Jesus will be made to look and feel like a fool. Yet fools for Christ formed the early Church. And as that tiny band of believers grew, the world witnessed the power in such foolishness. “That same foolishness is the only hope we have of breaking free. The greatest threat to any system is the existence of fools who do not believe in the ultimate reality of that system. To repent and believe in a new reality—that is the essence of conversion."
( Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus )

Christian "Madness"...... ?

"Simplicity, purity, and obedience to the Word will leave us weak and powerless in the world's eyes because we no longer can call upon our possessions and privileged positions as security. We will be subject to derision and outrage because authentic discipleship is a life of sublime madness. Injury and insult are promised to those who labor for the sake of righteousness."
( Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus )

The Simple Life Encounters the Cross

"Naturally the countercultural lifestyle—simplicity of life, purity of heart, and obedience to the gospel—will take us to the same place that it took Jesus: the Cross. All roads lead to Calvary, for we preach Jesus Christ crucified—a stumbling block to Jews, an absurdity to Gentiles; but to those who are called, Christ the power and the wisdom of God."
( Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus )

Christians Tackle Nuclear Meltdown.

"And our dreams are not mere wishful thinking; rather they are charged with hope and promise because the crucified, risen Jesus has prevailed over every principality, power, and dominion. He has unmasked their illusions, exposed their lies, shown them for what they are. The risen Christ stands free from their threats and control. In union with him we conquer consumerism, hedonism, and nationalism by the power of God’s love. We confront the world’s powers—political tyranny, economic oppression, the nuclear meltdown- not merely with our own strength, resources, and resistance, but with the very life of the risen Christ, knowing that things impossible with men are possible with God (see Luke 18:27).
( Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus )

Small Groups Of Community Everywhere.

"The early church was built on small groups of people who came together to support one another in a whole new way of life. These primitive communities were visible evidence of an alternative to the status quo of their culture. Today we need small bands of people who take the gospel at face value, who realize what God is doing in our time, and who are living proof of what it means to be in the world but not of the world. These “base" communities or neighborhood churches should be small enough for intimacy, kindred enough for acceptance, and gentle enough for criticism. Gathered in the name of Jesus, the community empowers us to incarnate in our lives what we believe in our hearts and proclaim with our lips.

Of course, we must not romanticize such groups. It is all too easy to envision a cozy, harmonious little fellowship where everyone is tuned in on the same wavelength, to love the dream of community more than the sin—scarred members who comprise it, to fantasize heroic deeds for the Lord, and to hear the applause in heaven and on earth as we shape an angelic Koinonia.

The reality is otherwise. Egos collide, personalities conflict, power brokers intrude, anger and resentment surface, risk is inevitable. “It is less like utopia than a crucible or refiner’s fire.""

(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus )

We Need Group To Run With

"The experience of community is neither a luxury for the spiritually affluent nor a panacea for the lonely, bored, and idle. It is, in fact, a necessity for every Christian.....We need a group of people around us who support and understand us." ( Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus )

Lets give up "Separation".

This resonated because there is a core truth here. However, it does easily smack of a little Buddhism... if you misunderstand his point... 

Jim, I want to grow and deepen my spirituality, what must I do?”
“Give up the notion of separation, and give it up entirely.”
“What do you mean?”
“Quit imagining that you and God are separate, that you and I are separate, that you and all others are separate, that you and life are separate, that you and the mountains are separate, that you and the moon and stars are separate. Give up the notion that you and love are separate, that you and worth are separate, that you and peace are separate, that you and freedom are separate, that you and well-being are separate, that you and happiness are separate.”
“How will I know I have attained this?”
“You will know when you see yourself as a part of the whole, rather than merely an individual and separate entity. You will know when you no longer look at the world through eyes of judgment, but through eyes of love and compassion. You will know when all people and all living things are your family – your mother and father, son and daughter, sister and brother.” (Jim Palmer)

PLAY My Game Or I Don't Have Time For You

He nailed it ....right or wrong, about how I felt.... wow

"What frustrated me was I began to realise, from an insiders stand point, unless you were a part of what I was doing, you weren't important. I didn't have time to focus on you unless you effected the bottom line of what was going on, unless you were part of the thing we were building.
I didn't have the time. I was exhaused. I was one of those run around with you head cut off guys, light my hair on fire christians, and in the midst of all that you are going like, "Lord, where is the simplicity and the open handedness that I'm not doing this with a mixture of motive?" I'm not asking the question, "Can I get this person to be a part of our thing?"

My experience is a lot people that are... who are now setting out on this journey, or stepping away from it (institutional). I think they are pretty tired of being able to see through some of those dynamics. They don't want to be just another cog in someone elses machine." (Brad Cummings... "The God Journey" Podcast. May 19, 2005)

Sentences Need SPACE.

"Also, our sentences wanted room to unfold and form their columns in the interval. Individuals, like nations, must have suitable broad and natural boundaries, even a considerable neutral ground, between them. I have found it a singular luxury to talk across the pond to a companion on the opposite side. In my house we were so near that we could not begin to hear—we could not speak low enough to be heard; as when you throw two stones into calm water so near that they break each other's undulations. If we are merely loquacious and loud talkers, then we can afford to stand very near together, cheek by jowl, and feel each other's breath; but if we speak reservedly ancl thoughtfully, we want to be farther apart, that all animal heat and moisture may have a chance to evaporate." ( Henry David Thoreau. Walden )

Words Need Space......

"One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when we began to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room for your thoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or two before they make their port. The bullet of your thought must have overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last and steady course before it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it may plow out again through the side of his head." ( Henry David Thoreau. Walden )

BIG Church Vermin - Vermin Church

"Many of our houses, both public and private, with their almost innumerable apartments, their huge halls and their cellars for the storage of wines and other munitions of peace, appear to be extravagantly large for their inhabitants. They are so vast and magnificent that the latter seem to be only vermin which infest them."
( Henry David Thoreau. Walden )

A Small House..... Will It Cut The Religious Mustard?

"It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain." ( Henry David Thoreau. Walden )

Where Two Or Three Gather......

"I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society." ( Henry David Thoreau. Walden )

How Much "Letting Go" is Required

"How much do we need to let go of?" a friend asked one day. ''I'm not certain," I replied, "but maybe everything." — Lewis Carroll

YOU'RE Wrong Either Way

"People will see you walk on water and say it's because you can't swim."(???)

The Eyes Of The Great..... Are Not Looking For His Job

“The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world; small hands do them, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.”
(J. R. R.Tolkien.The Lord of the Rings)

CEO Pastor...Doesn't Have Time For People With Needs.

We are more interested in people who have something to offer so, with gifts time talents or money we can harness,  to further the program machine we are running.

<blockquote>"For years, I ran with the elk (sometimes led the pack) who were convinced God wanted us to birth movements, shift paradigms, and save the world. Given the magnitude of it all, I didn’t have the time, energy, or inclination to help the guy wandering into a coffee shop at closing time looking for a hot shower and a warm bed. I wonder if the good Samaritan story was a secret message to all tire salesmen, truckers, coffee—shop owners, cashiers, waitresses, carpet installers, UPS drivers, accountants, tech—heads, stay—at—home moms, working single moms, bartenders, barbers, and butchers to keep their eyes wide open, because the professionals are too preoccupied with grander things, passing by real people with needs God placed right beneath their noses in everyday life."
( Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you. ) </blockquote>

Does Our "Moral" and "Righteous" OVER FLOW?

"We may be moral and righteous, have fine ideals and beautiful thoughts, but without this presence of Christ overflowing, we Christians have lost our wind, fire, salt, and yeast. Perhaps loving the guy across the street is more where the rubber meets the road, given our natural tendency to go big or be an activist so we feel good."
( Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you. )

Belligerent Homelessness - Belligerent Preachers

"Okay, I know some hopeless people are unstable and belligerent, but so are some Baptist preachers I know. Most don’t set out to be homeless. I have never known a single eight—year—old who answered the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” with “Be a homeless person.” For many it’s just a series of difficult life situations, circumstances, bad decisions, and hardships until one cold February night they find themselves inside a little coffee shop in Tennessee looking for a ride to Oklahoma. Like John in Paradise."
( Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you. )

You Can't Find God.....

"The radical failure in so—called religion is that its way is from man to God. Starting with man, it seeks to rise to God; and there is no road that way. (J. Arundel Chapman- 1885-1934)

Start Movements????.... Just love your neighbour

''I once dreamed of launching revolutions, sparking movements, mobilizing the masses, and changing everything. Now I've learned the beauty and profound significance of simply loving my neighbor." - Jim Palmer

Is God Real Outside The Building?

"Until God gets real outside the building he'll never be real inside the building." (Karl Ingersoll. Fredericton N.B. )

Bad Mistakes I Made As A Pastor/Minister

20 Mistakes I Made As A Senior Pastor:

Putting church over community.
Putting orthodoxy over love.

Putting certainty over wonder.
Putting teaching over conversation.
Putting polished over real.

Putting answers over questions.
Putting membership over friendship.
Putting Christianity over Christ.
Putting knowledge over action.
Putting style over substance.

Putting appearance over authenticity.
Putting functionality over beauty.
Putting religion over spirituality.
Putting holiness over humanity.
Putting accountability over acceptance.
Putting heaven over earth.

Putting reputation over risk.

Putting charisma over compassion.
Putting the Afterlife over the Herelife.
Putting thinking over feeling."

- Jim Palmer

Speaking Out: ANOTHER Mega Church Shifting To Organic Church.

"We never believed they would work even in our original suburban context, and certainly not in urban, anti-corporate Portland. There is such an emphasis here on small batch, home-grown, do it yourself, local, organic, etc. People around here place a high value on authenticity and have skepticism toward "chains.  ....But I'm finding that this type of ministry takes church in a direction that we need to pause and consider..... But I'm finding that this type of ministry takes church in a direction that we need to pause and consider....
Multi-site inevitably ends up being personality-driven, non-contextualized, and fails to effectively raise up leaders capable of contextualizing. It promotes consumerism—even if it's masked behind several layers of "missional-speak."....
(What do you wish someone had told you at the beginning of this transition?)
How hard it would be. How long it would take. Oh, and I wish somebody had told me that it would be harder on our leadership than anyone else."

(Farewell Franchise Ministry. Why is megachurch pastor John Mark Comer ditching conventional church-growth wisdom? Two words: mission and millennials. Interview by Paul Pastor)

The Christian with depth is the person who has failed and who has learned to live with it.

"You know, in spite of the fact that Christianity speaks of the cross, redemption, and sin, we’re unwilling to admit failure in our own lives. Why? Partly because it’s human nature’s defense mechanism against its own inadequacies. But even more so, it’s because of the successful image our culture demands of us. There are some real problems with projecting the perfect image. First of all, it’s simply not true—we are not always happy, optimistic, in command. Second, projecting the flawless image keeps us from reaching people who feel we just wouldn’t understand them. And third, even if we could live a life with no conflict, suffering, or mistakes, it would be a shallow existence. The Christian with depth is the person who has failed and who has learned to live with it." (Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel, Pg,176)

Be Kind To Strangers

Hebrews 13:2 advises, “Do not forget to entertain strangers..." God didn’t want me to start a program for homeless people, launch a volunteer recruitment campaign at church, or raise money for the local mission—all things I am inclined to do. I think God just wanted me to see what would happen if one cold night I found myself face—to—face with a desperate stranger in need."
(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you.)

STOP Elivating Cultures With Bigotry Toward Women.

"The message of this book, if it must have a message, is that we in the West would be wrong to prolong the pain of that transition unnecessarily, by elevating cultures full of bigotry and hatred toward women to the stature of respectable alternative ways of life."
(Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Infidel)

Make The Whole....

"She could never go back and make some of the details pretty. All she could do was move forward and make the whole beautiful." - Terri St. Cloud

Words For Teenagers From 1959 Judge

"Northland College principal John Tapene has offered the following words from a judge who regularly deals with youth. "Always we hear the cry from teenagers, ‘what can we do, where can we go?’

“My answer is this: Go home. mow the lawn. wash the windows, leam to cook, build a ran, get a job. visit the sick. study your lessons and after you've finished, read a book. Your town does not owe you recreational facilities and your par- ents do not owe you fun.

"The world does not owe you a living. you owe the world something. You owe it your time. energy and talent so that no one will be at war. in sickness and lonely again. In other words grow up, stop being a cry baby, get out of your dream world and develop a backbone not a wishbone. Stan behaving like a re sponsible person. You are import- ant and you are needed. It's too late to sit around and wait for somelxxly to do something someday. Someday is now and that somebody is you!"

Keep Coming Back To Jesus

"What makes authentic disciples is not visions, ecstasies, biblical mastery of chapter and verse, or spectacular success in the ministry, but a capacity for faithfulness. Buffeted by the fickle winds of failure, battered by their own unruly emotions, and bruised by rejection and ridicule, authentic disciples may have stumbled and frequently fallen, endured lapses and relapses, gotten handcuffed to the fleshpots, and wandered into a far country. Yet they kept coming back to Jesus."(Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel. Pg, 182)

Is Islam About Peace?

"When people say that the values of Islam are compassion, tolerance, and freedom, I look at reality, at real cultures and governments, and I see that it simply isn’t so. People in the West swallow this sort of thing because they have learned not to examine the religions or cultures of minorities too critically, for fear of being called racist. It fascinates them that I am not afraid to do so."
(Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Infidel)

Islam.... Women Can't Look After Themselves?

Because men will use and abuse them in that culture... if they are alone.

"This is what my grandmother had meant when she warned me: if you are a Somali woman alone, you are like a piece of sheep fat in the sun. Ants and insects crawl all over you, and you cannot move or hide; you will be eaten and melted until nothing is left but a thin smear of grease. And she also warned us that if this happened, it would be our fault."
(Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Infidel)

Women Are Not Stable Enough For Leadership?

"They said women were in the grip of invisible forces that played with their minds and made them switch from one extreme mood to another. That was why Allah had ordained that the testimony of two women is equal to that of one man, and also why women should not be allowed to govern or accept public offices, for leadership requires mindful contemplation and judgments reached after careful thought."
(Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Infidel)

World's Greatest Lie According To The Alchemist

"Everyone believes the world's greatest lie," continued the old man. "What is the world's greatest lie?" the boy asked. "lt's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie." - The Alchemist

One Of These Us Better Than Ten Preachers? ????

"I would rather teach one man to pray than ten men to preach,"
(Charles Spurgeon)

Learn What To fear And What Not To Fear

"But I was frightened of everything that moved — every insect, every animal. My grandmother would sometimes try to reason with me. “A wild horse that bolts at every moving thing stumbles and breaks its leg," she told me. “As you run from your small insect you may fall onto this bush and die, because it is poisonous. You may fall onto this mound and die because it hides a snake. You must learn what to fear and what not to fear."  (Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Infidel).

"When you’re on your own in the desert, you are completely on your own." ( Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Infidel)

Are We Really Interested In People?

"Whatever else he might need or ask for, it was clear to Rick that any person weary of traveling, with more miles still ahead, could use some java on a cold winter’s night. Rick listened to his story, asking questions as if he really was interested, because strangely enough, he was really interested."
(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you.)

Re-reading The Past Too Much

"You can't start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one."

Oppression Of Women in Islam

From the muslim woman Ayaan Hirsi Ali. .... 
<blockquote>"Saudi Arabia is the source of Islam and its quintessence. It is the place where the Muslim religion is practiced in its purest form, and it is the origin of much of the fundamentalist vision that has, in my lifetime, spread far beyond its borders. In Saudi Arabia, every breath, every step we took, was infused with concepts of purity or sinning, and with fear. Wishful thinking about the peaceful tolerance of Islam cannot interpret away this reality: hands are still cut off, women still stoned and enslaved, just as the Prophet Muhammad decided centuries ago. The kind of thinking I saw in Saudi Arabia, and among the Muslim Brotherhood in Kenya and Somalia, is incompatible with human rights and liberal values. It preserves a feudal mind—set based on tribal concepts of honor and shame. It rests on self—deception, hypocrisy, and double standards. It relies on the technological advances of the West while pretending to ignore their origin in Western thinking. This mind—set makes the transition to modernity very painful for all who practice Islam."</blockquote>
(Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Infidel)