A Common Place Blog

THEOLOGY

2012-02-15T19:44:00.000Z

'That age of the church which was most fertile in subtle questions was most barren in religion; for it makes people think religion to be only a matter of cleverness, in tying and untying of knots. The brains of men inclining that way are hotter usually than their hearts.'

Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, p.28.

PREACHING

2012-02-15T19:40:00.000Z

'Preachers should take heed likewise that they hide not their meaning in dark speeches, speaking in the clouds. Truth fears nothing so much as concealment, and desires nothing so much as clearly to be laid open to the view of all. When it is most unadorned, it is most lovely and powerful. Our blessed Saviour, as he took our nature upon him, so he took upon him our familiar manner of speech, which was part of his voluntary abasement. Paul was a profound man, yet he became as a nurse to the weaker sort (1 Thess. 2:7).'

Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, p.26.

DISCIPLESHIP

2012-02-15T19:35:00.000Z

'Weak Christians are like glasses which are hurt with the least violent usage, but if gently handled will continue a long time. This honour of gentle use we are to give to the weaker vessels (1 Pet. 1:3), by which we shall both preserve them and likewise make them useful to ourselves and the church.'

Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, p.25.

DISCIPLESHIP

2012-02-15T19:32:00.000Z

'It is not the best way, to assail young beginners with minor matters, but to share them a more excellent way and train them in fundamental points. Then other things will not gain credence with them. It is not amiss to conceal their defects, to excuse some failings, to commend their performances, to encourage their progress, to remove all difficulties out of their way, to help them in every way to bear the yoke of religion with greater ease, to bring them to love God and his service, lest they acquire a distaste for it before they know it.'

Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, p.22.

PASTORAL CARE

2012-02-15T19:25:00.000Z

'Here see the opposite dispositions in the holy nature of Christ and the impure nature of man. Man for a little smoke will quench the light. Christ, we see, ever cherishes even the least beginnings. How he bore with the many imperfections of his poor disciples!'

Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, p.21.

TEMPTATION

2012-02-15T19:22:00.000Z

'Let this support us when we feel ourselves bruised. Christ's way is first to wound, then to heal. No sound whole soul shall ever enter into heaven. Think when in temptation, Christ was tempted for me; according to my trials will be my graces and comforts. If Christ be so merciful as not to break me, I will not break myself by despair, nor yield myself over to the roaring lion, Satan, to break me into pieces.'

Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, p.10.

GOD'S MERCY

2012-02-15T19:16:00.000Z

'Shall we think there is more mercy in ourselves than in God, who plants the affection in us?'

Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, p.7.

SUFFERING

2012-02-15T19:13:00.000Z

'...we must not pass too harsh a judgment upon ourselves or others when God exercises us with bruising upon bruising. There must be conformity to our head, Christ, who 'was bruised for us' (Isa. 53:5) that we may know how much we are bound unto him. Ungodly spirits, ignorant of God's ways in bringing his children to heaven, censure broken-hearted Christians as miserable persons, whereas God is doing a gracious, good work with them. It is no easy matter to bring a man from nature to grace, and from grace to glory, so unyielding and intractable are our hearts.'

Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, p.6.

RICHARD SIBBES

2012-02-15T10:19:00.001Z

'Of this blest man, let this just praise be given: heaven was in him, before he was in heaven.'

Isaac Walton quoted in the Foreword to Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, p.viii.

VISION

2012-02-10T15:38:00.000Z

'When you are casting vision, think bite-sized. Articulate the greater vision and then break it down so that it is accessible to everyone. God has made us all parts of one body for the purpose of giving him glory through the exaltation of Jesus. Helping people to see their parts in such a great mission will inspire ownership in the mission. Ownership will in turn inspire innovation and creativity and make the vision God has given your church acheivable.'

Brad House, Community, p.80.

EVANGELISM

2012-02-10T15:32:00.000Z

'Our apathy toward the mission of God is not beacuse of a lack of knowing what to do. It is our blindeess to his glory and grace that keeps us satisfied with nominal Christianity. If you want to light a fire under your church for mission, don't simply trot out your goals; lift up Jesus. When we see him in his power and are overcome by his love, we are joyfully compelled to respond to his call to make disciples. We are energized to reach the lost and help the weak. We are inspired to worship and to call the lost to his feet.'

Brad House, Community, p.75.

CHURCH

2012-02-07T09:43:00.000Z

'Loving your neighbors is much easier if you never have to deal with them. Living in the light of the gospel is much harder in community where people sin against you. Your neighbors know this and that is why talk is cheap. Experiencing a people who confess their sins against one another, repent, and forgive is foreign to the world. Communities that live in this way, transformed by the gospel, will not only have a good reputation among their neighbors, but also will point them to hope in Jesus. This is a community that has joined the mission of God.'

Brad House, Community, p.41.

CHRISTIANITY

2012-02-07T09:39:00.000Z

'Christianity is not an individual sport.'
Bard House, Community: Taking your small group off life support, p.40.

LOVE

2012-02-07T09:14:00.002Z

'Well there can't be nothing worse
Than a perfect love gone wrong.'
Sting, 'Perfect Love...Gone Wrong.'

SANCTIFICATION

2012-02-05T09:22:00.000Z

'The call to heroic sanctity is a call...to live one's life carried along like a feather on the breath of God, to become the hero of one's own story, instead of a background character in the tragic drudgery of history, or a cog in the inspired narrative of technological progress.'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.234.

HEAVEN

2012-02-05T09:17:00.000Z

'Almost everyone, at least at some level, thinks that this world is more appealing that the world to come. It is because we do not spend enough time contemplating beauty, because we do not take into our hearts the realization that all of the wonders and marvels, all of the joys and triumphs, of this world are only a tiny spark thrown from the fire of Beauty that burns in the mind of God. The feeling that we have when the Ring is finally destroyed in the Fires of Mouth Doom is only a distant harbinger of the dawn that awaits the soul at the end of the world, when the darkness that sin brings across the horizons of our lives is broken, when the forgotten tatses of childhood rise up again in all of their intensity and then are shown to be nothing, a shadow and a ghost, in comparison with the reality that lies ahead.'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.231.

LONELINESS

2012-02-04T13:44:00.002Z

'Should we ever feel truly lonely if we never ate alone?'
Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man, p.90.

HEAVEN

2012-02-02T09:52:00.002Z

'There is a hope that burns within my heart,
that gives me strength for ev'ry passing day;
a glimpse of glory, though revealed in meagre part,
that drives all doubt away:
I stand in Christ, with sins forgiv'n,
with Christ in me, the hope of heav'n;
my highest calling and my deepest joy:
to make his will my home.

There is a hope that lifts my weary head,
a consolation strong against despair,
that when the world has plunged me in its deepest pit,
I find the Saviour there.
Through present sufferings, future fears,
he whispers, "Courage!" in my ears,
and I am safe in everlasting arms
for he will bear me home.

There is a hope that stands the test of time,
that lifts my eyes beyond the beckoning grave,
to see the matchless beauty of a day divine
when I behold his face.
When sufferings cease and sorrows die,
when every longing’s satisfied,
then joy unspeakable will flood my soul,
for I’ll be truly home.'

Stuart Townend and Mark Edwards

SEX

2012-02-02T08:46:00.000Z

'"Casual sex is not about fun, or liberation, or self-esteem, or self-love, or healing the world. It is not casual at all. It is meant to be a very serious panacea for the deeper problem of epidemic loneliness which pervades modern culture. Man, having divorced himself from nature and the family, is left with the problem of an unpleasant solitude. The pornography empires and glory holes have been erected on the foundations of terrible loneliness, which they attempt to assuage with the superficial imitation of intimacy.

This loneliness is the product of the reduction of the family to a contract of mutual convenience, an arrangement that can be dissolved the moment one of the partners failes in his responsibility to meet the other's self-defined needs. It has lost its covenantal power to overcome the original solitude of Adam, the solitude of which God once said, "It is not good that man should be alone."'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.190.

HOMOSEXUALITY

2012-02-02T08:38:00.000Z

'If you concentrate solely on refuting the homosexual act, or homosexual marriage, or even the notion that homosexuality exists, you are not offering people somewhere to go.'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.186.

SUFFERING

2012-02-01T09:23:00.000Z

'I could never myself believe in God were in not for the the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as "God on the cross." In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the satue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged into God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me!'

John Stott, The Cross of Christ, p.387.

SUFFERING

2012-02-01T09:15:00.000Z

'Biblical teaching and personal experience thus combine to teach that suffering is the path to holiness or maturity. There is always an indefinable something about people who have suffered. They have a fragrance that others lack.'

John Stott, The Cross of Christ, p.369.

CHURCH

2012-01-31T09:25:00.000Z

'Membership in our community is not extended only to the pre-perfected. We are not an exclusive country club that allows in only the brightest and the best. The Church is a hospital for sinners; when you go there you should expect to encounter the broken, the defeated, the unholy, the lost. If you encounter only the stern and the upright, with their tight lips and their virtues dangling like medals from their chests, you've gone to the wrong place.'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.174.

SEX

2012-01-30T09:15:00.000Z

'The practice of chastity demonstrates that one actually possesses what one promises to give. To refrain from sex before marriage is a very concrete, difficult, and therefore valuable, proof that the other person is not merely an object of lust, that sexuality has been subordinated to the will.'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.147.

RELATIONSHIPS

2012-01-27T09:25:00.000Z

'We want to be known. We desperately want for someone to look into the dark reccesses of our soul and love us anyway. We want, also, to know. There is a tremendous comfort in realizing that we are part of the same humanity, saddled with the same diseases, the same lusts, the same crosses. To know, and to be known, to be understood, and to understand ourselves in the light of another person. To see the boundaries of subjectivity and know that there is something out there, beyond the self, something more than just a void. Another person. "Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone."'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.134.

LONELINESS

2012-01-27T09:21:00.000Z

'Loneliness is not simply a matter of being alone; it is a matter of being unknown. The unshakeable desire of the human heart is know and be known.'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.133.

LONELINESS

2012-01-27T09:19:00.001Z

'The great sorrow of humanity is loneliness. This single suffering is greater than all of the other possible sufferings that man has ever been forced to endure (except, perhaps for meaninglessness). Tremendous waves of overwhelming pain can be borne willingly if you know that the result is going to be a new human being, a new remedy to this illness. Cancer is lightened by a circle of people who love and understand. People are able to overcome the most tremedous evils by pulling together, suffering together. Indeed, terrible trials can be made easy, even enjoyed, if they are undertaken in common.'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.133.

HOMOSEXUALITY

2012-01-26T17:44:00.000Z

'I prop myself up with pillows and watch his elegant foot as he dozes, knowing I could reach it if I lifted my hand. I want Jimmy to like me. I want to be like Jimmy, or I want to be Jimmy. Or I want to touch Jimmy.'

Ryan Van Meter, If You Knew Then What I Know Now, p.20.

MARRIAGE

2012-01-26T09:48:00.000Z

'Marriage is a kind of insanity. It is the same sort of insanity that drives mountain-climbers to endure the seemingly undendurable in order to conquer the pristine peak of a sharp-toothed monster of rock and ice. You cannot do this if you believe in defeat. If while you are standing at the bottom of the mountain, you already have in your mind the conditions under which you are going to abandon the project and go home, you will, without a doubt, end up abandoning it.'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.121.

MARRIAGE

2012-01-26T09:01:00.001Z

'It is because of, and not in spite of, the tensions between the sexes that marriage works. Masculinity and femininity each have their vices and their strengths. The difficulty when you have two women or two men together is that they understand each other too well, and are thus inclined more to excuse than forgive. That frank bafflement which inevitably sets in, in any heterosexual relationship ("Why on earth would he do that? I just don't understand...") never set in throughout all of the years that my girlfriend and I were together - naturally enough. We were both women, and we chose each other because we seemed to be particularly compatible women.'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.117.

LOVE

2012-01-24T09:42:00.000Z

'...love gives food to the hungry, shelter to the homeless, help to the destitute, friendship to the lonely, comfort to the sad, provided always that these gifts are tokens of the giving of the self. For it is possible to give food, money, time and energy, and yet somehow withold oneself. But Christ gave himself. Though rich, he became poor, in order to make us rich.'

John Stott, The Cross of Christ, p.338.

IDENTITY

2012-01-24T09:38:00.000Z

'Who am I? What is my "self"? The answer is that I am a Jekyll and Hyde, a mixed-up kid, having both dignity, because I was created and have been re-created in the image of God, and depravity because I still have a fallen and rebellious nature. I am both noble and ignoble, beautiful and ugly, good and bad, upright and twisted, image and child of God, and yet sometimes yielding obsequious homage to the devil from whose clutches Christ has rescued me. My true self is what I am by creation, which Christ came to redeem, and by calling. My false self is what I am by the Fall, which Christ came to destroy.'

John Stott, The Cross of Christ, p.330.

SELF-ESTEEM

2012-01-24T09:32:00.000Z

'My worth is what I am worth to God; and that is a marvellous great deal, for Christ died for me.'

William Temple in John Stott, The Cross of Christ, p.326.

LOVE

2012-01-23T09:14:00.000Z

'Love: not a rising tide of bodily fluids and hormones, a psychological mess to be cleared up by YM questionairres about "Is it the Real Thing?" Love: an act of will, a gift given without reservation and, in a sense, irrationally. Philosophical gobbledygook about "rathionally self-interested morality" holds no sway in the courts of love. Love is madness. It is not the stupid, drippy, half-imbecilic madness that oozes off the screen in a romantic comedy. That sort of madness is far too sane for love. No, love is the sort of madness that makes people declare that they are going to fly to the moon, or build massive coral castles for their "sweet sixteen." To declare that you love another human being is to drop yourself off the edge into the mythic stream of reality, to consent to be carried along through unmapped realms, smashed against the rocks, shipwrecked, cast up gasping on alien beaches, and then rushed off to float through halcyon seas under a sky as broad as heaven. Once you have done it, there is no returning. You can swim against the current, lug yourself up onto the beach, and wander off, bruised and disheveled, hoping that somewhere over the rainbow there is another, gentler river, but you will never make it back to that state of innocence from which you undertook the journey in the first place.'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.101.

THE BODY

2012-01-23T09:03:00.000Z

'The body is a gift, given to man by God. It is the means by which man receives all other gifts. It is a gift which man may give to another or, receive from another. It is the gift which, when given, creates another body, another gift, and so on and so forth, through an entire anthropological economy built up on donation and self-giving love.'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.97.

SEX

2012-01-22T09:14:00.000Z

'Sex is not a more or less irrelevant toy. It is a life-making technology; an intense form of interpersonal communication; a tool for joining together disparate human persons into one; a transcender of subjectivity. It is a work of art, full of symbol and purpose, created by the highest of all Artists, and then given to humanity as a gift, in order to allow us to participate in the transmission and creation of our own species. It is not a bit of biological flotsam to be disposed of how we will.

Many people - particularly the sex-experts - do not believe this. It doesn't matter. If you think that an atomic generator is a neat toy, and that all the people saying it requires proper "saefty precautions" are just party-poopers, you can expect to die of radiation poisoning sooner or later. It desn't matter if you can come up with a clever argument, or a really neat joke, or a radically new sexual position to express your feelings about the matter. Reality is hopelessly intractable; she will not bend herself out of shape to fit your paradigm or conform herself pleasantly to human delusions - even if it can be statistically proven that those delusions are shared by 90% of the American people.

This is why truth - particularly truth about humanity, sexuality, and the body - is necessary. These are things of which we are made, fundamental components of our human being. We ought to figure out what they are for. The alternative is to muck around until we are completely broken, and, for the sake of a quick thrill, reduce ourselves to rubble and human scrap.'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.93.

POST-MODERNISM

2012-01-22T09:02:00.000Z

'If you think that you have discovered the true meaning of everything by discovering that there is no meaning, or that there is something intently clever about the idea of sticking together bits and bobs in a haphazard way to create "art" that doesn't say a thing, you're in for a bit of a shock. This isn't "new" or "cutting edge" or "avante-garde": it's just the philosophy that cockroaches developed long before your ancestors dragged themsleves out of the slime. Gussying it up in big words doesn't make it any more penetrating or original.'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.92.

THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION

2012-01-22T08:55:00.000Z

'The great social experiment of the sexual revolution - an experiment performed on an entire population without controls, and without reasonable safety precautions - has been a horrible failure. If it were a hair-care product or a aerosol cheese spray, the FFA would have pulled it from the shelves, and the companies responsible for releasing it in the first place would be facing bankruptcy class-actioon suits. And yet here we are, fifty years in, blithely swallowing the same mental sewage, calling if "freedom" and "love" and wondering why we're all dying of depression, stress, and loneliness.'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.80.

SEXUALITY

2012-01-20T09:23:00.000Z

'The truth is that sexuality is a fundamentally personal and subjective; it has to do with the heart of the individual much more than with any objective, measurable data.'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.77.

FRIENDSHIP

2012-01-20T09:20:00.002Z

'...the universal human project of serving as psychotherapists to one's aquaintances - a process generally called "friendship."'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.68.

SIN

2012-01-20T09:17:00.001Z

'I have very little doubt that as we excavate the genetic matrix underlying the human body, we will discover that many faults and vices have a genetic origin. That violence, perhaps even spousal abuse, is genetically programmed into certain people and not into others. That alcoholism has a genetic basis. Even that innocent personality quirks, like the desire to be constantly chweing on something (a wad of tobacco, a stick of gum, a piece of paper) is coded into the sequence of amino acids that somehow adds up to you and me. Does this mean that we are therefore to live our lives constantly under the iron boot of genetic dictatorship? Not at all.

St. Paul told us this specifically: "For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would...And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passiosn and desires." (Gal. 5:17.24).

Christ's crucifixion was a victory over the flesh; Christ, like very human being, had an inborn, genetically determined desire not to be tortured and put to death on a cross. He coudl have chosen to aviod it: both Caiaphas and Pilate gave Him ample opportunity to deny His divinity, declaim His Kingdom, and save His life. He did not. Why? Because there is something in a human being which is stronger than the genetic code.'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.65.

THE CHURCH

2012-01-19T09:48:00.001Z

'Wherever She has been consumed with Pharasaical self-righteousness, She has been pruned away. Christ, who has always been merciful with sexual sinners, corrupt minor officials, and ignorant minor fishermen from the sticks, had no use for the supercilious and sanctimonious. He still has no use for them today. Christians who wish to do His will must stop picking at the splinters in their neighbours' eyes. Stop. Take one good look in the mirror. It won't take long. A log is hard to ignore.'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.47.

SEXUALITY

2012-01-17T10:55:00.000Z

'Sex education in the church might begin by seeking to cultivate a deep awareness on the indwelling presence of God. An authentic reverence for the reality of the Holy Spirit's presence in our bodies might facilitate the recovery of the Bible's powerful categories of holiness and purity as meaningful norms for our sexual practices.'

Richard B Hays, First Corinthians, p.108.

ADOLESCENCE

2012-01-17T09:43:00.001Z

'Being a teenager is difficult - so much so that most societies have never asked this of their children.'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity, p.31.

THE MEDIA

2012-01-17T09:39:00.000Z

'...at the end of the day, the purpose of the media is not to inform or enlighten, but to deliver the appropriate messages to the appropriate camps so that everyone has a clear notion of the who enemy is, and where they are supposed to go to fight.'

Melinda Selmys, Sexual Authenticity: An Intimate Reflection on Homosexuality and Catholicism, p.28.

JOY

2012-01-16T09:02:00.000Z

'Joy is always related to Jesus. There is no Christian joy that doesn't come from knowing him, worshipping him and finding hope in him.'

Marcus Honeysett, Finding Joy, p.78.

HEAVEN

2012-01-14T10:09:00.001Z

'If we do not imagine the future how can we believe it to exist?'

John Cheever, Journals, p.97.

FAITH

2012-01-12T09:25:00.000Z

'Faith is receiving. Faith is trusting God to do for you as he has promised. It isn't what we do. When you receive a birthday present you don't commend yourself because of the excellent way you receive it. Your act of receiving doesn't contribute anything to the present or the kindness of the giver. The same is true with faith...'

Marcus Honeysett, Finding Joy, p.24.

JOY

2012-01-12T09:21:00.000Z

'When Paul uses the word "rejoice" in Romans 5 and elsewhere, we could translate it as "enjoy", "take enjoyment in" or "delight in". We don't use the word "joy" very much today, but we do use the word "enjoy".'

Marcus Honeysett, Finding Joy, p.22.

JOY

2012-01-12T08:58:00.000Z

'Christian joy is the experience of gladness or happiness, not in plans or possessions or people, but in God.'

Marcus Honeysett, Finding Joy: A radical rediscovery of grace, p.13.

THE CROSS & RESURRECTION

2012-01-10T09:42:00.002Z

'We are not to regard the cross as defeat and the resurrection as victory. Rather, the cross was the victory won, and the resurrection [w]as [that] victory endorsed, proclaimed and demonstrated.'

John Stott, The Cross of Christ, p.274.

SINGLENESS

2012-01-09T10:22:00.000Z

'The excessive value the Western world has placed on individualism fosters a psychological tendency to associate singleness with living alone. This is a tendency the church should resist. Christian singleness is not a denial of the underlying principle of Genesis 2:18, that it is not good to be alone. Neither Jesus nor Paul as single men was devoid of relationships. On the contrary, their relationships flourished in both number and depth by the freedom and flexibility their singleness afforded them.'

Barry Danylak, Redeeming Singleness, p.215.

MARRIAGE & SINGLENESS

2012-01-09T10:18:00.000Z

'...Christian marriage is a testimony of the utterly faithful and unchanging love of God for his people in a permanent covenant relationship with him. Christian singleness is a testimony to the complete sufficiency of Christ for the present age and gives visible witness to the hope of our eternal inheritance yet to come; and Christian sexuality is an expression of the exclusive unity and oneness of the marriage relationship.'

Barry Danylak, Redeeming Singleness: How the storyline of Scripture affirms the single life, p.214.

COURAGE

2012-01-05T21:19:00.000Z

'...courage is fear that has said its prayers...'

Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies, p.239.

FORGIVENESS

2012-01-05T21:16:00.000Z

'...families are definitely the training ground for forgiveness. At some point you pardon the people in your family for being stuck together in all their weirdness, and when you can do that, you can learn to pardon anyone. Even yourself, eventually. It's like learning to drive on an old car with a tricky transmission: if you can master shifting gears on that, you can learn to drive anything.'

Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies, p.220.

PASTORAL CARE

2012-01-05T11:38:00.000Z

'...I believe that when all is said and done, all you can do is to show up for someone in a crisis, which seems so inadequate. But then when you do, it can radically change everything. Your there-ness, your stepping into a scared parent's line of vision, can be life giving, because often everyone else is hiding - especially, in the beginning, the parents. So you come to keep them company when it feels like the whole world is falling apart, and your being there says that just for this moment, this one tiny piece of the world is OK, or is at least better.'

Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies, p.164.

BUSYNESS

2012-01-05T11:33:00.000Z

'I started to feel like a tired, wired little kid at a birthday party who has had way too much sugar, who is in all ways on overload, but still finds herself blindfolded and spun around for a game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, and then pushed more or less in the direction of the wall with the donkey on it. But I was so turned around, so lost and overwhelmed and stressed that I couldn't even remember where the wall with the donkey was - or even in what direction it might be found. So I couldn't take one step forward without there being a chance that I was actually walking further away from it. And it took me a while to remember that for me, the wall with the donkey on it is Jesus.'

Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies, p.149.

GRACE

2012-01-05T11:17:00.000Z

'I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us. It can be received gladly or grudgingly, in big gulps or in tiny tastes, like a deer at the salt. I gobbled it, licked it, held it down between my little hooves.'

GRACE

2012-01-05T10:33:00.000Z

'...grace is having a commitment to - or at least an acceptance of - being ineffective and foolish.'

Anne Lammot, Traveling Mercies, p.142.

HUMANKIND

2012-01-05T10:29:00.001Z

'Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.'

Eugene O'Neill in Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies, p.112.

LIFE

2012-01-02T22:09:00.000Z

'It's funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some inner toolbox, full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty old tools - friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty - and said, Do your best with these, they will have to do. And mostly, against all odds, they're enough.'

Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies, p.103.

PRAYER

2012-01-02T22:04:00.000Z

'Here are the two best prayers I know: "Help me, help me, help me," and "Thank you, thank you, thank you."'

Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies, p.82.

GRIEF

2012-01-02T22:02:00.000Z

'All those years I fell for the great palace lie that grief should be gotten over as quickly as possible and as privately. But what I've discovered since is that the lifelong fear of grief keeps us in a barren, isolated place and that only grieving can heal grief; the passage of time will lessen the acuteness, but time alone, without the direct experience of grief will not heal it.'

Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies, p.68.

CHURCH

2012-01-02T21:10:00.000Z

'When she was about seven, her best friend got lost one day. The little girl ran up and down the streets of the big town town where she lived, but she couldn't find a single landmark. She was very frightened. Finally a policeman stopped to help her. He put her in the passenger seat of his car, and they drove around until she finally saw her church. She pointed it out to the policeman, and then she told him firmly, "You can let me out now. This is my church, and I can always find my way home from here."

And that is why I have stayed so close to mine - because no matter how bad I am feeling, how lost or lonely or frightened, when I see the faces of the people at my church, and hear their tawny voices, I can always find my way home.'

Anne Lamott, Travleing Mercies, p.55.

PRAISE

2012-01-02T13:38:00.001Z

'...the praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards...'
JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, p.709.

FAITH

2012-01-02T09:14:00.001Z

'My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear.'

Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, p.3.

TOP 10 BOOKS OF 2011

2011-12-31T10:41:00.002Z

In no particular order...

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity
Mariano Magrassi, Praying the Bible: An Introduction to Lectio Divina
Tim Keller, The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God
Roger Steer, George Muller: Delighted in God
Jan Struther, Mrs Miniver
William Fiennes, The Music Room
William Wilberforce, A Practical View of Christianity
John Cheever, Collected Stories
Russell D Moore, Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ

MARRIAGE

2011-12-29T11:00:00.000Z

'She remembered chiefly the deepening discovery that another person could be oneself. That being with him could be like being alone without the loneliness.'

Monica Dickens, Mariana, p.363.

PARENTING

2011-12-22T14:49:00.000Z

'It takes a whole church to raise a child.'
Ed Moll & Tim Chester, Gospel-centred Family, p.83.

PARENTING

2011-12-22T14:03:00.000Z

'Often our true values are revealed in the expectations we have for our children. On Sunday in church we sing about how knowing Jesus is the greatest thing. But our priorities and hopes for our children suggest that what matters most in life is educational development, career development, social development, skills development.'

Ed Moll & Tim Chester, Gospel-centred Family, p.18.

FEAR

2011-12-22T09:38:00.000Z

'...the first command of the gospel. "Fear God and you will have nothing less to fear. Don't fear other people. Don't fear violence and power, even when it comes to you personally and can rob you of your life. Don't fear the high and mighty in the world. Don't fear yourself. Don't fear your sins. All these feras will die. From all these fears you will be set free. For they are no longer there. But fear God and him alone. For he has the power over all the powers of this world. The whole world is in fear of God. He has the power to give us life or to destroy us. All other powers are a mere game. God alone is real, seriously real. Fear God seriously and "give him the glory."'

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christmas Sermons, p.111.

OTHER RELIGIONS

2011-12-22T09:32:00.001Z

'...though there be thousands of religions and viewpoints and opinions and philosophies in the world, and though they construct the most attractive of ideologies, and though the hearts of the people are moved and won over by them, they are all shattered by death. They must be broken because they are not true. Only the gospel remains.'

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christmas Sermons, p.110.

CHURCH

2011-12-21T16:27:00.001Z

'The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world. He knows much more of the fierce varieties and uncompromising divergences of men. The reason is obvious. In a large community we can choose our companions. In a small community our companions are chosen for us.

GK Chesterton in Matthew Lee Anderson, Earthen Vessels, p.221.

PREACHING

2011-12-21T16:09:00.000Z

'Today, with the ease of access and prevalence of content, we border on the edge of cultivtaing a generation of Christians addicted to what we might call "pastoral porn." While listening to gospel preaching is a good thing, it establishes unrealistic expectations for preaching that have already made it diificult for pastors who are younger or from small towns. To pick a figure at random, I suspect Tim Keller became Tim Keller the way anyone gets good at anything - through practicing for hundreds of hours in front of a patient and loving audience. Who knows whether the next generation will have a similar tolerance level, especially if down the road they're showing Tim Keller archived sermons every Sunday.'

Matthew Lee Anderson, Earthen Vessels, p.217.

BIBLE STUDY

2011-12-21T12:59:00.002Z

'The habits of our body enable - or hurt - our ability to consume Scripture. After spending large quantities of time on the Internet for the last five years, I find my eyes skimming over Scripture the way I would a blog post. They dart up and down the page, refusing to settle in and move slowly over the words. While I am able to get the broad movements of the text quickly, I find it harder to attend to the nuances of the words. While I think my heart is in the right place, the habits of my eyes are working against me.'

Matthew Lee Anderson, Earthen Vessels, p.193.

DEATH

2011-12-21T10:21:00.000Z

'Christianity declares that the tragic intrusion of death on the goodness of creation is not the end of the story. The silence of death is but a pause in the symphony of our lives. We must "play the rests," as my piano teacher repeatedly reminded me. Within the dynamic power of the resurrection, death is not the end of the melody, but is swept up in a glorious concluding theme that begins with a trumpet call.'

Matthew Lee Anderson, Earthen Vessels, p.172.

THE RESURRECTION

2011-12-21T10:15:00.000Z

'When we experience the power of the resurrection through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we will age as though not aging, be in pain as though not in pain, and die as though not dying.'

Matthew Lee Anderson, Earthen Vessels, p.165.

JESUS

2011-12-21T09:06:00.000Z

'There are only two places where the powerful and great in this world lose their courage, tremble in the depths of their souls, and become truly afraid. These are the manger and the cross of Jesus Christ.'

CHRISTMAS

2011-12-21T09:00:00.000Z

'When God chose Mary for his instrument, when God himself in the manger at Bethlehem decided to come into this world, that was no romantic family portrait, but the beginning of a total turning point, a new ordering of all things on this earth. If we want to partcipate in this Advent and Christmas happening, we cannot simply be like spectators at a theater performance, enjoying all the familiar scenes, but we must ourselves become part of this activity, which is taking place in this "changing of all things." We must have our part in this drama. The spectator becomes an actor in the play. We cannot withdraw ourselves from it.'

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christmas Sermons, p.100.

GRACE

2011-12-21T08:53:00.001Z

'...God's gracious will is to love the humble and lowly, the insignificant. He chose to make them great. Mary, living in the faith of the Old Testament and hoping for her redeemer, this humble working man's wife becomes the mother of God. Christ the son of the of a poor working man's wife from the East End of London! Christ in the manger...God is not ashamed to be with those of humble state. He goes into the midst of it all, chooses one person to be his instrument, and does his miracle there, where one least expects it. He loves the lost, forgotten, the insignificant, the outcasts, the weak, and the broken. Where men say "lost," he says "found;" where men say "condemned," he says "redeemed;" where men say, "no," he says "yes." Where men look with indifferencve or superiority, he looks with burning love, such as nowhere else is to be found. Where men say, "contemptible!," God cries "blessed." When we reach such a point in our lives at which we are not only ashamed of ourselves, but believe God is ashamed of us too, when we feel so far from God, more that we have ever felt in our lives, then and precisely then, God is nearer to us than he ever has been. It is then he breaks into our lives. It is then that he lets us know that that feeling of despair is taken away from us, so that we may grasp the wonder of his love, his nearness to us, and his grace.'

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christmas Sermons, p.99.

SUFFERING

2011-12-20T18:01:00.000Z

'After conversion we need bruising so that reeds may know themselves to be reeds, and not oaks. Even reeds need bruising, by reason of the remainder of pride in our nature, and to let us see that we live by mercy. Such bruising may help weaker Christians not to be too much discouraged, when they see stronger ones shaken and bruised.'

Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, p.5.

TEMPTATION

2011-12-20T17:56:00.000Z

'In time of temptation, apprehensive consciences look so much to the present trouble they are in that they need to be roused up to behold him in whom they may find rest for the distressed souls.'

Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, p.2.

SINGLENESS

2011-12-20T10:36:00.003Z

'Christian celibacy...is a life uniquely orientated toward our eschatalogical transformation, a life that bears witness to the kingdom of heaven in a unique way.'

Matthew Lee Anderson, Earthen Vessels, p.159.

MASTURBATION

2011-12-20T09:52:00.000Z

'Human sexuality is inherently social, and masturbation is not. In that sense, it represents a failure to fulfill the nature of Christian sexuality as God designed it.'

Matthew Lee Anderson, Earthen Vessels, p.135.

THE CHURCH & SINGLENESS

2011-12-20T09:50:00.002Z

'A church without singles has lost one of its main ways of warning against a sexual idolatry that has driven the whole world mad.'

Matthew Lee Anderson, Earthen Vessels, p.133.

SEX

2011-12-20T09:47:00.002Z

'The teaching that our wholeness depends upon sexual fulfillment lies behind many of the problems in evangelical teaching about sex. We implicity convey to young people that sex is a need by marginalizing those who are single or cordoning them off in singles groups so that they hopefully will get married. Then we expect them to live some of the most sexually charged years of their lives without yielding to temptation. No wonder young people struggle to stay sexually pure: either sex is essential to flourishing as humans or it isn't. And if everyone who is married thinks it is, then young people will too - regardless of whatever else we tell them.'

Matthew Lee Anderson, Earthen Vessels, p.132.

SEXUALITY

2011-12-20T09:41:00.002Z

'Most young evangelicals were raised within youth groups where discussions of the goodness of sexuality were inevitably drowned out by the understandable attempts to remind everyone to keep their clothes on. Of course, some of that might be the fault of the youth. When all you can think about is reaching inside the cookie jar, Mom's lectures about the goodness of cookies will be far less memorable than her restriction to wait until after dinner. Young people with raging hormones need little persuasion that sex within marriage is good. Further, presenting healthy sexuality that is enticing enough to make young people want to wait for sex until marriage while at the same time not exacerbating their temption to engage in sexual fatasies is something of a high art. And evangelicals certainly have not mastered it.'

Matthew Lee Anderson, Earthen Vessels, p.122.

BUILDINGS

2011-12-20T08:46:00.000Z

'We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.'

Winston Churchill in Matthew Lee Anderson, Earthen Vessels, p.84.

THE RESURRECTION

2011-12-17T22:24:00.001Z

'Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

In the grave they laid him, love whom men had slain,
Thinking that never he would wake again.
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green,

Forth he came at Easter, like the risen grain,
He that for three days in the grave had lain.
Quick from the dead my risen Lord is seen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,
Thy touch can call us back to life again;
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.'

John Crum

SINGLENESS

2011-12-15T09:26:00.000Z

'The Christian perspective on singleness is almost unique. Unlike traditional societies, Christianity sees singleness as good beacuse the kingdom of God provides the most lasting possible legacy and heirs. Unlike sex-and-romance-saturated Western society, Christians see singleness as good because our union with Christ can fulfill our deepest longings.'

Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, p.201.

LOVE

2011-12-14T10:23:00.000Z

'...if we are looking for a definition of love, we should look not in the dictionary, but at Calvary.'

John Stott, The Cross of Christ, p.247.

SINGLENESS

2011-12-13T08:47:00.000Z

'...single people cannot live their lives as singles without a balanced, informed view of marriage. If they do not have that, they will either over-desire or under-desire marriage, and either of those ways of thinking will distort their lives.'

Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, p.192.

GRACE

2011-12-11T10:08:00.000Z

'Without an experience of God's grace, people who feel they have succeeded in life feel confident but are not humble before others who are wrongdoers. People who feel they have largely failed in life are humble but not confident and joyful.'

Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, p.166.

MARRIAGE

2011-12-11T10:05:00.000Z

'Marriage does not so much bring you into confrontation with your spouse as confront you with yourself. Marriage shows you a realistic, unflattering picture of who you are and then takes you by the scruff of the neck and forces you to pay attention to it.'

Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, p.140.

FRIENDSHIP

2011-12-10T18:48:00.000Z

'Friendship is a deep oneness that develops as two people, speaking the truth in love to each other, journey together to the same horizon. Spiritual friendship is the greatest journey of all, because the horizon is so high and far, yet sure - it is nothing less than "the day of Jesus Christ" and what we will be like when we finally see him face-to-face.'

Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, p.116.

FRIENDSHIP

2011-12-10T18:45:00.000Z

'...the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person - having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breadth of kindness blow the rest away.'

Dinah Craik in Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, p.112.

FRIENDSHIP

2011-12-10T18:40:00.000Z

'There are two features of real friendship - constancy and transparency. Real friends always let you in, and they never let you down.'

Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, p.112.

LOVE

2011-12-09T09:24:00.000Z

'Do not waste time bothering whether you "love" your neighbour, act as if you did. As soon as you do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.'

CS Lewis in Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, p.100.

LOVE

2011-12-09T09:20:00.001Z

'When over the years someone has seen you at your worst, and knows you with all your strengths and flaws, yet commits him- or herself to you wholly, it is a consummate experience. To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.'

Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, p.95.

MARRIAGE

2011-12-09T09:14:00.000Z

'Like everything which is not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion but the creation of time and will, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is more infinitely interesting than any romance, however passionate.'

WH Auden in Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, p.90.