BECOMING A CHRISTIAN

'To transition from believing you live in a world where death is the end, to one in which an almighty God calls dead things to life.'

Esau McCaulley, Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal, p.7.

WHERE DESIRE POINTS US

'Conversion means that people change their direction, not their character or their history. Desire, that constant reminder that there is something beckoning beyond any immediate horizon, is there to be re-purposed: it is not there to be torn out or thrown away or violently bent out of shape. The flowering of desire in the human soul is a herald for God's presence, because desire points towards something we have not made for ourselves and cannot encompass. It speaks God's truth: that the perfectly regulated and performed self is not, in fact, available to anyone. Neither the religious not the secular closed self can thrive.

For those who recognize that they are dependent animals - creatures - this is not such a terrible shock.'

Jessica Martin, Holiness and Desire, p.166. 

HOW GRACE BEGINS

'To desire the aid of grace is the beginning of grace.'
Augustine of Hippo in James KA Smith, On the Road with Saint Augustine, p.67. 

CONVERSION DEFINED

'Conversion is not an arrival at our final destination; its the acquisition of a compass.'
James KA Smith, On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts, p.50. 

AUTHENTICATING FAITH

'Until we suffer, we are untested. Only suffering can stamp us with the hallmark of authentic faith...' 

Christopher Ash, Teaching Romans (Volume 1), p.197. 

JONATHAN EDWARDS & CONVERSION

'The light and comfort which some of them enjoy, gives a new relish to their common blessings, and causes all things about 'em to appear as it were beautiful, sweet and pleasant to them: all things abroad, the sun, moons and stars, the clouds and sky, the heavens and earth, appear as it were with a cast of divine glory and sweetness upon them.' 

Jonathan Edwards in Belden C Lane, Ravished by Beauty, p.186. 

CONVERSION

'...I don't know if anyone can be converted without seeing themselves in a kind of blasting annihilating light, a blast that will last a lifetime.' 

Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being, p.427. 

CONVERSION

'Making a life commitment to Christ was not merely a philosophical shift. It was not a one-step process. It did not involve rearranging the surface prejudices and fickle loyalties of my life. Conversion did not "fit" my life. Conversion overhauled my soul and personality. It was arduous and intense. I experienced with great depth the power and authority of God in my life. In it I learned - and am still learning - how to love God with all my heart, soul, strength and mind. When you die to yourself, you have nothing from your past to use as clay out of which to reshape your future.'

Rosario Champagne Butterfield, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, p.34.  

THE TRINITY

'I didn't need to understand the hypostatic unity of the Trinity; I just needed to turn my life to whoever came up with redwood trees.'

Anne Lamott, Plan B, p.295.

CONVERSION

'What happens in conversion - at least, what happened in mine - is that a person concludes the truth is in Jesus.'

Lauren F Winner, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, p.xiii.

GRACE

'For anyone who says yes to Jesus

For anyone who believes what Jesus said

For anyone who will just reach out and take it

Then God will give them this wonderful gift:

To be born into

A whole new Life

To be who they really are

Who God always made them to be -

Their own true selves -

God's dear

Child.'

Sally Lloyd-Jones, The Jesus Storybook Bible, p.351.

CONVERSION

'The individual act of conversion is not a rejection of community but the occasion for community.'

Lamin Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel beyond the West, p.45.