PATHS TO GOD

'...any authentic longing, any longing that, even implicitly, points towards eternity, is a possible path towards God.'

Erik Varden, The Shattering of Loneliness, p.145.

WHY EVANGELICALISM IS FAILING TO EVANGELISE

'I often wonder whether the younger "None" generation (meaning they mark "None" when asked on forms whether they belong to any religious denomination or group or espouse a particular creed), for whom the old wineskin of how church is done may no longer seem relevant, is now limited to experiencing God authentically primarily through culture and nature, two areas that evangelicalism in the United Sates has abandoned in order to "evangelize" the world.'

Makoto Fujimura, Art and Faith: A Theology of Making, p.5

THE EVANGELICAL CRISIS OF CREDIBILITY

'If the Reformation was a crisis of authority - one that rightly gave the highest authority to the Bible rather than the priests - then this reckoning (or perhaps even a new reformation) is one of credibility: Do we who profess to believe in the authority of the Word present ourselves as credible witnesses of that Way, Truth, and that Life?'

Karen Swallow Prior, The Evangelical Imagination, p.231.

THE CHURCH AS THE ANSWER TO CHRISTIANITY'S CREDIBILITY PROBLEM

'How is it possible that the gospel should be credible, that people should come to believe that the power which has the last word in human affairs is represented by a man hanging on a cross? I am suggesting that the only answer, the only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it.'

Lesslie Newbiggin in Belousek, Marriage, Scripture and the Church, p.290.

MISSION AS SPIRITUAL CONFLICT

'The deepest motive for mission is simply to be with Jesus where he is, on the frontier between the reign of God and the usurped dominion of the devil.'

Lesslie Newbigin in Fleming Rutledge, Three Hours, p.78.

HOLINESS

'Holiness...is the necessary effect and means of the gospel. In other words, holiness is not only the result of conversion, it's also the embodied argument in support of the gospel's veracity. We're saved to be holy, and we become holy so others will be saved.' 

Elliot Clark, Evangelism as Exiles: Life on mission as strangers in our own land, p.115. 

THE FIRST STEP IN EVANGELISM

'...one of the main things our neighbors who don't know Jesus need is simply to trust a Christian.'

Justin Whitmel Earley, The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction, p.59. 

A GOOD QUESTION

'Is there a story that understands you?'
Paul M Gould, Cultural Apologetic, p.206. 

BEAUTY'S ROLE IN EVANGELISM

'Beauty is a divine megaphone to rouse a disenchanted world.' 

Paul M Gould, Cultural Apologetics, p.104. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF CREATION IN EVANGELISM

'The path of return to God lies through creation itself...Cultural apologetics involves cultivating spiritual perception, recognizing that creation itself offers glimpses of the divine. Even more, creation ushers us into God's presence as we learn to see God in and through all that he lovingly has made.' 

Paul M Gould, Cultural Apologetics: Renewing the Christian Voice, Conscience, and Imagination in a Disenchanted World, p.83.  

EFFECTIVE EVANGELISM

'...Christians who narrow their understanding and practice of mission to evangelism alone end up being less effective in that evangelism precisely because what they are witnessing to, exemplifying, and acting out is a much-reduced gospel, an important but thin slice of the abundant Kingdom life. Proclamation of the Gospel is an essential of both Christian mission and Christian life, but it is not the totality of either. When it becomes the only mode of Christian service to God, the message being proclaimed becomes less attractive because it is less vital and less evident in those proclaiming it. How do we expect people to be attracted to a society of people who live only to convert other people to their society? We will be better evangelists if we do not concentrate all of our energies on evangelism.' 

John G Stackhouse Jr. Why You're Here p.97. 

HOW CHRISTIANITY ATTTRACTS IN A HOSTILE CULTURE

'One is immediately struck in 1 Peter with two contrary reactions of outsiders to the soft missionary difference. On the one hand, there is angered surprise and blaspheming from non-Christians that Christians are no longer joining them  "in the same excesses of dissipation" (4:4). The Christian difference is the cause of discrimination and persecution. Moreover, 1 Peter tells us, such negative reaction is to be expected from non-Christians. Christians should not be surprised by the "fiery ordeal" which they have to endure (4:12). The negative reactions of non-Christians do not rest on misunderstanding, but are rooted in the inner logic of the non-Christian constellation of values which seem incompatible with the values of Christians. On the other hand, one of the central passages in 1 Peter entertains a lively hope that precisely the Christian difference - outwardly visible in their good deeds - will cause non-Christians to see the truth and eventually convert (2:12,15; 3:1;3:16). This expectation presupposes overlap between Christan and non-Christian constellations of values. The good works of Christians can be appreciated by non-Christians and look attractive to them.' 

Miroslav Volf, Soft Difference: Theological Reflections on the Relation Between Church and Culture in 1 Peter, p.25.

(Available at: http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~tim/study/Miroslav%20Volf%201%20Peter.pdf)

WHERE CHRISTIAN IDENTITY LIES

'Notice the significance of the new birth for Christian social identity. Christians do not come into their social world from outside seeking either to accommodate to their new home (like second generation immigrants would), shape it in the image of the one they have left behind (like colonizers would), or establish a little haven in the strange new world reminiscent of the old (as resident aliens would). They are not outsiders who either seek to become insiders or maintain strenuously the status of outsiders. Christians are the insiders who have diverted from their culture by being born again. They are by definition those who are not what they used to be, those who do not live like they used to live. Christian difference is therefore not an insertion of something new into the old from outside, but a bursting out of the new precisely within the proper space of the old.'

Miroslav Volf, Soft Difference: Theological Reflections on the Relation Between Church and Culture in 1 Peter, p.18.

(Available at: http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~tim/study/Miroslav%20Volf%201%20Peter.pdf)

THE KEY TO EVANGELISM

'I was willing to be rejected. That's what allows you to be a good salesperson. You have to be willing to be rejected.' 

Bill Thomas in Atul Gawande, Being Mortal, p.113. 

TRUE CHURCH UNITY

'It is often suggested that because doctrine divides, the best way to unite a church (or churches) is to dumb down and de-emphasize doctrine, because doctrinal distinctives will exclude some who cannot subscribe to them. This is true when the doctrinal distinction is secondary. It is untrue when the doctrine is justification by grace alone. Other distinctives create privileged or exclusive ghetto religion. But grace alone fashions a community which has no pride in its history, its privileges, its morality, its Bible knowledge, or anything that comes from within itself. It is therefore, a community that can live together in harmony and reach out with the barrier-breaking message of grace to a needy world.' 

Christopher Ash, Teaching Romans: Volume 1, p.177. 

FOLLOWING JESUS

'...a crucified saviour who willingly embraces weakness in the incarnation and on the cross can only be properly passed on by servants who willingly accept weakness and vulnerability.'  

Julian Hardyman, The Joy of Service, p.41. 

FAITH NEEDS A STORY

'It was in church that I learnt how perilously faith depends upon story, for without narrative there is only theological assertion, which is, in effect, inert cargo. Story is the beast of burden, the bearer of imaginative energy.' 

Tim Winton, The Boy Behind the Curtain, p.106. 

POSITIVE EVANGELISM

'After eighteen years of pastoral ministry, I have never met a person who fell in love with Jesus because a Christian scolded them about their ethics. Have you?' 

Scott Sauls, Befriend, p.19. 

JESUS OWNS EVERYTHING

'The whole earth...belongs to Jesus. It belongs to him by right of creation, by right of redemption and by right of future inheritance - as Paul affirms in the magnificent cosmic declaration of Colossians 1:15-20. So wherever we go in his name, we are walking on his property. There is not an inch of the planet that does not belong to Christ. Mission then is the authorised activity carried out by tenants on the instructions of the owner of the property.' 

Christopher JH Wright in Craig G Bartholomew, Where Mortals Dwell, p.115. 

THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH

'Yes, we face difficult times, every generation of the church does. But we also face unprecedented opportunities, as cultural Christianity falls all around us. Many of our neighbors around us will burned over by the unkept, and unkeepable, promises of the sexual revolution and of Faustian individualism. Short term, these things will ravage communities and families and churches. But long-term, they will leave people wanting. And so we need to be ready for those who -like the woman at the well in Samaria - need to hear of living water that alone can satisfy. We must labor to preserve something ancient, something ever new, not just for us, and not just for our children, but for our future brothers and sisters in Christ, many of whom hate us right now. Many of them may one day lead us by the power of the Spirit that calls to life that which was dead. In that, we are no different from any other era.' 

Russell Moore, Onward, p.216.