"We are accustomed to by long usage to an elaborate system of church organization , a peculiar code of morality. We cannot imagine any Christianity worthy of the name existing without the elaborate machinery which we have invented. We naturally expect our converts to adopt from us not only essentials but accidentals. We desire not to impart not only the Gospel, but Law and the Customs. With that spirit, St. Paul's methods do not agree, because they were the natural outcome of quite another spirit, the spirit which preferred persuasion to authority. St. Paul distrusted elaborate systems of religious ceremonial, and grasped fundamental principles with an unhesitating faith in the power of the Holy Ghost to apply them to his hearers and to workout their appropriate external expression in them. It was inevitable that methods which were the natural outcome of the mind of St. Paul should appear as DANGEROUS to us as they appeared to the Jewish Christians of his own day." - Man before his times Roland Allen - Missionary Methods: St Pauls or ours - 1912

"Brethren, whatever other gifts you have, if you are to succeed, you must have hearts, and hearts that can feel." - William Booth

what a great quote -
+ Oh Lord for heart that can feel and feel deeply.

"Only in the heart of the Christian community can you find a concept of God as holy love, who seeks identity and fellowship with us and who desires union with us to such a degree that he willingly became one of us."

-Dennis Kinlaw Let's Start with Jesus

Here is a quote from Bill Hull's new resource on discipleship -

"We not only have been saved by grace - but we have been paralyzed by it..."

Dallas Willard quoted by Bill Hull The Complete Book of Discipleship

"When we have no impressive buildings and no swollen budgets to sustain our work, often then do we realize the best we have to offer this post-Christendom world is the quality of our relationships, the power of our trustworthiness, and the wonder of our generosity. " - Mike Frost, Exiles

"I would like to buy $3.00 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to buy a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough to love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3.00 worth of God, please."
--Wilbur Reese

"The members of the Church of the Savior (in Washington, D.C.) pursue both the inward journey of faith and the outward journey of social justice. Gordon Cosby and his wife, Mary, lead this community to find the substance of their lives in pursuing Christ and ministering to the broken in their neighborhood. When someone in the church senses a call from God for service, the church prays about it, and if God is in it, the vision is refined and a handful of members commit to bringing it to fruition.

Over a cup of soup at the Potter's House, a coffeehouse run by the church, eighty-plus-year-old Gordon shared with me how much more can be accomplished by ten people who discover their call than one hundred who are unsure. His desire is to lead people to living from the focused center of God's kingdom and then following the call God gives them. When I asked him why more churches don't follow his example and better their cities, he responded with a rather sobering comment: "Because the servant leadership Jesus offers us is a leadership toward unimpressiveness."

- from Buck Naked Faith by Eric Sandras

What would it be like if Christians embraced their niche and call and together transformed a city with "unimpressive" servant leadership?

Oh Lord let me be a nobody used for You!!

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port of air.

It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

- Wallace Stevens

"Modern man believes he is fruitful and productive when his ego is aggressively affirmed, when he is visibly active, and when his action produces obvious results."
Thomas Merton

How true is that even of churches and pastors - not just business oriented people?

I find myself fitting in that mold.

I really need to go to bed - I have to do some walking in the morning - in the "hills" - I must put the new "toy" down.

This site that I found about this guy who is a preacher that uses his blog as a psuedo-confessional is great. This guy is so real and authentic - and plus he tells really cool stories. I like the one that he has on there about the three sisters - see if you can find it on the site. Man I hope to start to tell stories - and effectively - again. I want to leave a legacy for my son - of not only my faith but my creativity as well. Plus I want a way to communicate my heart for life and Jesus.

I have a love for quotes - I guess that I like someone who can say what is in my heart before I can verbalize it (especially in one sentence)

Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.

-- Martin Luther (1483-1546)

It has pleased God that divine verities should not enter the heart through the understanding, but the understanding through the heart.

-- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

The last quote is especially good for me - considering my love of study.