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Take Faith, For Example. For Many People In Our World, The Opposite Of Faith Is Doubt. The Goal, Then, Within This Understanding, Is To Eliminate Doubt. But Faith And Doubt Aren't Opposites. Doubt Is Often A Sign That Your Faith Has A Pulse, That It's Alive And Well And Exploring And Searching. Faith And Doubt Aren't Opposites, They Are, It Turns Out, Excellent Dance Partners.

-Rob Bell

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Take Faith, For Example.

Rob Bell

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Take Faith, For Example. For Many People In Our World, The Opposite Of Faith Is Doubt. The Goal, Then, Within This Understanding, Is To Eliminate Doubt. But Faith And Doubt Aren't Opposites. Doubt Is Often A Sign That Your Faith Has A Pulse, That It's Alive And Well And Exploring And Searching. Faith And Doubt Aren't Opposites, They Are, It Turns Out, Excellent Dance Partners.

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What's Interesting Is, If You Take The Scientists And The Theologians, The Really Good Ones, They End Up Both Filled With This Wide-eyed Sense Of Wonder And Awe About Look At This World We Live In.

Because With Every Action, Comment, Conversation, We Have The Choice To Invite Heaven Or Hell To Earth.

The Cross Is Gods Way Of Taking Away All Of Our Accusations, Excuses, And Arguments.

God Then Makes People Whom He Puts Right In The Middle Of All This Loaded Creation. Commanding Them To Care For Creation, To Manage It, To Lovingly Use It, To Creatively Order It... They Are Environmentalists. Being Deeply Connected With Their Environment Is Who They Are. For Them To Be Anything Else Or To Deny Their Divine Responsibility To Care For All That God Has Made Would Be To Deny Something That Is At The Core Of Their Existence. This Is Why Litter And Pollution Are Spiritual Issues.

The Vibrant, Real Historic Christian Faith Is Very Wide And Leaves Lots And Lots Of Room For Varying Perspectives. It's Very Diverse And Wide, That's Part Of It's Strength, Life And Vibrancy.

I Would Say That The Powerful, Revolutionary Thing About Jesus' Message Is That He Says, 'what Do You Do With The People That Aren't Like You? What Do You Do With The Other? What Do You Do With The Person That's Hardest To Love?' . . . That's The Measure Of A Good Religion, Is - You Can Love The People Who Are Just Like You; That's Kind Of Easy. So What Jesus Does Is Takes The Question And Talks About Fruit. He's Interested In What You Actually Produce. And That's A Different Discussion. How Do We Love The People In The World That Are Least Like Us?

When Someone Sets Out To Be Controversial Or Provocative Or Shocking As An End In Itself, I Don't Think That's A Noble Goal.

It's Absolutely Crucial That We Come Face To Face With The Power Of Our Choices.

There's Nothing Wrong With Possessions; It's Just That They Have Value To Us Only When We Use Them, Engage Them, And Enjoy Them. They're Nouns That Mean Something Only In Conjunction With Verbs. That's Why Wealth Is So Dangerous: If You're Not Careful You Can Easily End Up With A Garage Full Of Nouns.

The Ancient Hebrews Had A Word For This Awareness Of The Importance Of Things. They Called It Kavod. Kavod Originally Was A Business Term, Referring To The Heaviness Of Something, Which Was Crucial In Weights And Measures And The Maintaining Of Fairness In Transactions. Over Time The Word Began To Take On A More Figurative Meaning, Referring To The Importance And Significance Of Something.

The Christian Faith Is Mysterious To The Core. It Is About Things And Beings That Ultimately Can't Be Put Into Words. Language Fails. And If We Do Definitively Put God Into Words, We Have At That Very Moment Made God Something God Is Not.

Your Life Is A Gift And How You Respond To It - What You Do With It Matters. That's Where I Start.

There Are Moments When We Have To Return To Our Roots.

A Lot Of Christians Have Been Taught A Story That Begins In Chapter 3 Of Genesis, Instead Of Chapter 1. If Your Story Doesn't Begin In The Beginning, But Begins In Chapter 3, Then It Starts With Sin, And So The Story Becomes About Dealing With The Sin Problem. So Jesus Is Seen As Primarily Dealing With Our Sins.

If Anybody Didn't Have A Messiah Complex, It Was Jesus.

What You Believe About The Future Shapes, Informs, And Determines How You Live Now.

To Be Honest With You, I Am Passionate About All The People Out There Who Want To Know Jesus, They Want To Know God, And They Are Sick Of A System That Is Hung Up On A Bunch Of Things That Have Nothing To Do With The Love Of God.

What Does Happen Constantly With All Kinds Of People I Meet Is They Say "i Had This Encounter With Jesus, Can You Help Me Understand It..." The Labels, More Than Ever, Simply Aren't Big Enough To Contain What The Cosmic Christ Is Up To In The World.

Times Change. God Doesn’t, But Times Do. We Learn And Grow, And The World Around Us Shifts, And The Christian Faith Is Alive Only When It Is Listening, Morphing, Innovating, Letting Go Of Whatever Has Gotten In The Way Of Jesus And Embracing Whatever Will Help Us Be More And More The People God Wants Us To Be.

I Have Been Told That I Need To Believe In Jesus. Which Is A Good Thing. But What I Am Learning Is That Jesus Believes In Me.

I Think That At The Core Of Faith Is Trust.

Faith Can Take Many Different Forms And Expressions.

Many People Need A New Rewiring Of Their Heart And Mind.

When Isaiah Predicted That Spears Would Become Pruning Hooks, That's A Reference To Cultivating. Pruning And Trimming And Growing And Paying Close Attention To The Plants And Whether They're Getting Enough Water And If Their Roots Are Deep Enough. Soil Under The Fingernails, Grapes Being Trampled Under Bare Feet, Fingers Sticky From Handling Fresh Fruit. It's That Green Stripe You Get Around The Sole Of Your Shoes When You Mow The Lawn. Life In The Age To Come. Earthy.

What We Believe About Heaven And Hell Is Incredibly Important Because It Exposes What We Believe About Who God Is And What God Is Like.

Christian Is A Great Noun And A Poor Adjective

The Hardness Of The Human Heart Makes No Sense.

I Am For Marriage. I Am For Fidelity. I Am For Love, Whether It's A Man And Woman, A Woman And A Woman, A Man And A Man. I Think The Ship Has Sailed And I Think The Church Needs -- I Think This Is The World We Are Living In And We Need To Affirm People Wherever They Are.

I Believe God Gives People The Right To Say No, To Resist, To Refuse, To Reject, To Cling To Their Sins, To Cling To Their Version Of Their Story.

Christian' Makes A Poor Adjective

We Can Choose The Way Of Compassion, The Way Of Forgiveness, The Way Of Generosity. Or We Can Choose Other Paths And Those Have Very Real Consequences In The World. This Is Absolutely Crucial.

The Bible Tells A Story. A Story That Isn’t Over. A Story That Is Still Being Told. A Story That We Have A Part To Play In.

Two Of The Most Powerful Words You Can Hear Someone Say Are ‘me Too.’

Do We Get What We Want? Yes, We Get What We Want. God Is That Loving. If We Want Isolation, Despair, And The Right To Be Our Own God, God Graciously Grants Us That Option. If We Insist On Using Our God-given Pwer To Make The World In Our Image, God Allows Us That Freedom; We Have The Kind Of License To Do That.that's How Love Works. It Cant Be Forced, Manipulated, Or Coerced. It Always Leaves Room For The Other To Decide. God Says Yes, We Can Have What We Want, Because Love Wins.

The Cross Is God Taking On Flesh And Blood And Saying, Me Too.

We Often Rush Through The Experiences That Have The Greatest Shift.

Atoms Are A Relationship Of Energy. You Are A Relationship Of Energy Interacting With Another Person Who Is Another Complex Relationship Of Energy. We All Exchange More Than Words With Each Other. . . We Are Made Of The Same Substance As Rocks And Stars. .. We Are An Exotic Cocktail Living On This Planet. .. We Live In This Universe Which Is A Self-transcending Reality

It Takes Quite A Spine To Turn The Other Cheek. It Takes Phenomenal Fortitude To Love Your Enemy. It Takes Firm Resolve To Pray For Those Who Persecute You. (with Reference To Matthew 5)

I Believe That God Is With You, That There Is A Presence. I Believe This God Is For You. I Don't Think The Universe Is A Cold, Dead Place That Is Indifferent.

When You Forgive Somebody, When You Are Generous, When You Withhold Judgment, When You Love And When You Stand Up To Injustice, You Are, In That Moment, Bringing Heaven To Earth.

My Parents Were Both Very Intellectually Honest, Straightforward, And For Them, Faith Meant That You Were Fully Engaged.

Straightforward

The Interactions I Have Are With People Who Are Very Kind And Very Grateful And They Say Very Overwhelming Things To Me. Somebody Who Doesn't Like What I Do Or Doesn't Understand It, Then It Wasn't For Them.

For Many People, God Is Primitive, Behind, Trying To Drag Everything Back To Some Prehistoric Era As Opposed To Spirit, Force, Love, Drawing Us Into A Better Future, Which To Me Is - That Story Has Done Something In Me And I've Seen It Do Things In Other People.

You Want People Who Are Both Great Fans And Supporters And Believers Of Your Work And People Who Are Also Ruthlessly Honest. People Who Will Tell You The Truth About It. Over The Years I've Picked Up Some Friends And I Know Who To Show What To And They'll Give Me The Proper Read.

When The Female Voice Is Repressed And Stifled, The Entire Community Can Easily Find Themselves Cut Off From The Sacred Feminine, Depriving Themselves Of The Full Image Of God.

Sacred Feminine

When We Deny The Spiritual Dimension To Our Existence, We End Up Living Like Animals. And When We Deny The Physical, Sexual Dimension To Our Existence, We End Up Living Like Angels. And Both Ways Are Destructive, Because God Made Us Human.

Any Time Someone Makes You Feel Guilty About How You Are Living, That Is Part Of The Old System (pre-christ).

It Is Better To Be Fully Present And Rested And Engaged For One Thing Than Rushed, Distracted, And Scattered For Ten.

I Think The Church Needs – I Think This Is The World We Are Living In And We Need To Affirm People Wherever They Are.

Creating And Sharing Beautiful Things Has Provided Me With The Inspiration That We Can Do Things We Never Thought We Could Do And That We Will Get To See Wonderful Things We Never Thought We Would See.

I Am For Marriage. I Am For Fidelity. I Am For Love, Whether It's A Man And Woman, A Woman And A Woman, A Man And A Man.

The Fact That We Are Loved And Accepted And Forgiven In Spite Of Everything We Have Done Is Simply Too Good To Be True.

Too Good To Be True

Love Demands Freedom. It Always Has, And It Always Will. We Are Free To Resist, Reject, And Rebel Against God's Ways For Us. We Can Have All The Hell We Want.

Some Communities Don't Permit Open, Honest Inquiry About The Things That Matter Most. Lots Of People Have Voiced A Concern, Expressed A Doubt, Or Raised A Question, Only To Be Told By Their Family, Church, Friends, Or Tribe: "we Don't Discuss Those Things Here." I Believe The Discussion Itself Is Divine. Abraham Does His Best To Bargain With God, Most Of The Book Of Job Consists Of Arguments By Job And His Friends About The Deepest Questions Of Human Suffering, God Is Practically On Trial In The Book Of Lamentations, And Jesus Responds To Almost Every Question He's Asked With...a Question.

One Of The Oldest Aches In The Bones Of Humanity Is Loneliness. I Mean It's One Of The Things That Goes Way Back; Loneliness Is Not Good For The World. And So, Whoever You Are, Gay Or Straight, It Is Totally Normal, Natural, And Healthy To Want Somebody To Go Through Life With. It's Central To Our Humanity.

Take Faith, For Example. For Many People In Our World, The Opposite Of Faith Is Doubt. The Goal, Then, Within This Understanding, Is To Eliminate Doubt. But Faith And Doubt Aren't Opposites. Doubt Is Often A Sign That Your Faith Has A Pulse, That It's Alive And Well And Exploring And Searching. Faith And Doubt Aren't Opposites, They Are, It Turns Out, Excellent Dance Partners.

Look At The Size Of The Universe And Look At What We're Discovering About String Theory. There's A Wide-eyed Sense Of We're Just Getting Started Here.

The Modern World Has Created Airports And Hospitals And Put 10,000 Songs In Our Pocket. It Has Built Gleaming Buildings And Computers And Advances And Innovations That Blow Our Minds. But We Have Soul, And Spirit, And Consciousness, And The Modern World Hasn't Done So Well At Helping Us Name And Understand What It Means To Be Thriving And Fully Alive With A Full Heart.

What We Do Comes Out Of Who We Believe We Are.

People Received, Affirmed And Experienced Grace In Many Different Forms.

If This Understanding Of The Good News Of Jesus Prevailed Among Christians, The Belief That Jesus’s Message Is About How To Get Somewhere Else, You Could Possibly End Up With A World In Which Millions Of People Were Starving, Thirsty, And Poor; The Earth Was Being Exploited And Polluted; Disease And Despair Were Everywhere; And Christians Weren’t Known For Doing Much About It. If It Got Bad Enough, You Might Even Have People Rejecting Jesus Because Of How His Followers Lived. That Would Be Tragic.

If The Gospel Isn't Good News For Everybody, Then It Isn't Good News For Anybody. And This Is Because The Most Powerful Things Happen When The Church Surrenders Its Desire To Convert People And Convince Them To Join. It Is When The Church Gives Itself Away In Radical Acts Of Service And Compassion, Expecting Nothing In Return, That The Way Of Jesus Is Most Vividly Put On Display.

Our Tendency In The Midst Of Suffering Is To Turn On God. To Get Angry And Bitter And Shake Our Fist At The Sky And Say, "god, You Don't Know What It's Like! You Don't Understand! You Have No Idea What I'm Going Through. You Don't Have A Clue How Much This Hurts." The Cross Is God's Way Of Taking Away All Of Our Accusations, Excuses, And Arguments. The Cross Is God Taking On Flesh And Blood And Saying, "me Too.

The Life That You Want Begins The Moment You Embrace The Life You Have Because All Of It Is A Miracle.

You Turn The Light On, You Get All Kinds Of Bugs.

Many In The Modern World Fell For The Myth That We're Living In A Static, Fixed, Flat Reality Of Just Material Things.

My Experience As A Pastor Is Lots Of People Have Really Toxic, Dangerous, Psychologically Devastating Images Of God In Their Head, Images Of A God Who's Not Good.

Doctrine Is A Wonderful Servant And A Horrible Master.

Love Is Giving Up Control. It’s Surrendering The Desire To Control The Other Person. The Two—love And Controlling Power Over The Other Person—are Mutually Exclusive. If We Are Serious About Loving Someone, We Have To Surrender All The Desires Within Us To Manipulate The Relationship.

I Feel Like I've Gotten An Extraordinary Opportunity To Experience A Sort Of Collective Humanity. If You Hug Many People In Such A Short Period Of Days You Pick Up On A Communal Energy, Almost Like Feeling A Giant Heartbeat That Everyone Is Beating Together.

Swords Appear Strong, But They're Actually Quite Weak. Jesus Appears Weak, But He's Actually Quite Strong.

This Is Why For Thousands Of Years Christians Have Found The Cross To Be So Central To Life. It Speaks To Us Of God's Suffering, God's Pain, God's Broken Heart. It's God Making The First Move And Then Waiting For Our Response.

The Thought Of The Word Church And The Word Marketing In The Same Sentence Makes Me Sick.

I Believe That God Is Love. I Believe That Jesus Came To Show Us This Love, To Give Us This Love, To Teach Us About This Love, So That We Could Live In This Love And Extend It To Others.

We All Want To Make A Difference, To Live In Peace, To Have Joy Each Morning That We Get To Live This Day And See What It Brings.

Love Is What God Is, Love Is Why Jesus Came, And Love Is Why He Continues To Come, Year After Year To Person After Person...may You Experience This Vast, Expansive, Infinite, Indestructible Love That Has Been Yours All Along. May You Discover That This Love Is As Wide As The Sky And As Small As The Cracks In Your Heart No One Else Knows About, And May You Know, Deep In Your Bones, That Love Wins.

We Live In A World Where We Have Friends, Neighbors, Brothers, Sisters, Aunts, Uncles, People We Journey With For Years Who Are Gay. And We Need To Love, Affirm And All Of Us Together Work On The Real Problems That We Have In The World.

I Think What's Happened In The Modern World, There's A Lot Of People That Sound Very Smart And It's Very Compelling And Alluring, But It Leaves You Empty.

To Say It Again, Eternal Life Is Less About A Kind Of Time That Starts When We Die, And More About A Quality And Vitality Of Life Now In Connection To God. Eternal Life Doesn't Start When We Die; It Starts Now. It's Not About A Life That Begins At Death; It's About Experiencing The Kind Of Life Now That Can Endure And Survive Even Death.

No One Has The Last Word Other Than God.

I'm Interested In Painting The Most Beautifully Compelling Pictures And Images And Metaphors And Stories And Explanations Possible That Will Put Jesus In Language For A World That Desperately Needs To Hear It.

Fear Wants Us To Become Obsessed With Some Event Or Person In The Future, A Year, A Month, Even A Day. It Also Wants Us To Look Backwards Not At Our Successes, But Our Short-comings And Our Failures. Fear Losses It's Grip When We Stay In The Now.

God Has Spoken, And Everything Else Is Commentary.

In One Of The Accounts Of Jesus's Death We Read That The Curtain In The Temple Of God-the One That Kept People Out Of The Holiest Place Of God's Presence-ripped.one New Testament Writer Said That This Ripping Was A Picture Of How, Because Of Jesus, We Can Have New, Direct Access To God.a Beautiful Idea.but The Curtain Ripping Also Means That God Comes Out, That God Is No Longer Confined To The Temple As God Was Previously.

We Live In The Midst Of A Creation That Is Groaning.

My Interest Is In What's True, Where Is The Life, Where Is The Heart And What Inspires.

Your Deepest, Darkest Sins And Your Shameful Secrets Are Simply Irrelevant When It Comes To The Counterintuitive, Ecstatic Announcement Of The Gospel. So Are Your Goodness, Your Rightness, Your Church Attendance, And All Of The Wise, Moral, Mature Decisions You Have Made And Actions You Have Taken.

People Have A View Of A God Who Is Terrible That They Can't Even Imagine Being Loving Or Wanting Anything To Do With.

I Get Ideas About Things I Want To Make And Then I Throw Myself Into It With Everything I Have.

It's As If Thomas Kinkade And Dante Were At A Party, And One Turned To The Other Sometime After Midnight And Uttered That Classic Line "you Know, We Really Should Work Together Sometime.

Working Together

The Historical Orthodox Christian Faith Is Extremely Wide And Diverse.

Well, I Affirm Orthodox Christian Faith. I Affirm The Nicene Creed. I Don't Think I'm Doing Anything Terribly New.

I Would Hope That Wherever I Go I Bring Good News - That's What That Word Means, Right? It Began With The First Followers Of Jesus Taking A Roman Military Propaganda Term And Co-opting It For Their Own Subversive Purposes, Insisting That The World Isn't Made Better Through Coercive Military Violence But Through Sacrificial Love. How Great Is That!? Unfortunately This Word Has Been Hijacked In Several Years For Other Purposes But No Worries, We're Taking It Back.

Resurrection Is A Belief And Hope In Restoring This World.

I Think That Grace And Love Always Rattle People.

It Often Appears That Those Who Talk The Most About Going To Heaven When You Die Talk The Least About Bringing Heaven To Earth Right Now, As Jesus Taught Us To Pray: 'your Will Be Done On Earth As It Is In Heaven.' At The Same Time, It Often Appears That Those Who Talk The Most About Relieving Suffering Now Talk The Least About Heaven When We Die.

As A Pastor, You Get Invited Into The Most Poignant Moments Of People's Lives. Whether It's A Wedding Or A Funeral Or A Hospital Visit, You Get Invited Into The Center Of The Event, Whether Or Not You Know The People.

I Believe Our World Desperately Needs Good News.

The World Is Desperately In Need Of People Who Will Break Themselves Open And Pour Themselves Out For The Reconciliation Of All Things- That's What The World Needs.

Salvation Is The Entire Universe Being Brought Back Into Harmony With Its Maker.

To Me Some Of The Greatest Writing Is When Somebody Puts Something In Words That You Felt And Experienced And You Go, That's It.

Something Is Profoundly Wrong And We Are Desperate For Justice, For Restoration And For Somebody Somewhere To Do Something About This.

The Lesson That Has Been Hardest For Me To Learn: There Is Nothing To Prove.

The Resurrection Confronts Our World With Wonder, Mystery, And Miracles.

Missions Then Is Less About The Transportation Of God From One Place To Another And More About The Identification Of A God Who Is Already There [...] You See God Where Others Don't. And Then You Point Him Out. So The Issue Isn't So Much Taking Jesus To People Who Don't Have Him, But Going To A Place And Pointing Out To The People The Creative, Life-giving God Who Is Already Present In Their Midst.

Jesus Is Bigger Than Any One Religion. He Didn't Come To Start A New Religion, And He Continually Disrupted Whatever Conventions Or Systems Or Establishments That Existed In His Day. He Will Always Transcend Whatever Cages And Labels Are Created To Contain And Name Him, Especially The One Called "christianity.

When People Use The Word Hell, What Do They Mean? They Mean A Place, An Event, A Situation Absent Of How God Desires Things To Be. Famine, Debt, Oppression, Loneliness, Despair, Death, Slaughter--they Are All Hell On Earth. Jesus' Desire For His Followers Is That They Live In Such A Way That They Bring Heaven To Earth. What's Disturbing Is When People Talk More About Hell After This Life Than They Do About Hell Here And Now. As A Christian, I Want To Do What I Can To Resist Hell Coming To Earth.

Like A Mirror, God Appears To Be More And More A Reflection Of Whoever It Is That Happens To Be Talking About God At The Moment.

This Breath, And This Moment, And This Life Is A Gift And We Are All In This Together. We All Have Countless Choices Every Day To Close Down Or Stand Up Straight And Open Up, And Take A Big Breath And Say Yes To The Gift.

When I Talk About The God Who Is With Us, For Us, And Ahead Of Us, I'm Talking About Our Facing That Which Most Terrifies Us About Ourselves, Embracing It And Fearing It No Longer, Refusing To Allow It To Exist Separate From The Rest Of Our Being, Resting Assured That We Are Loved And We Belong And We Are Going To Be Just Fine.

If There's Any Place Where You Would Express Your Deepest Doubts, It Would Be Church.

Opening Up Your Soul To Someone, Letting Them Into Your Spirit, Thoughts, Fears, Future, Hopes, Dreams ... That Is Being Naked.

Your Job Is The Relentless Pursuit Of Who God Made You To Be. And Anything Else You Do Is Sin And You Need To Repent Of It.

What If Tomorrow Someone Digs Up Definitive Proof That Jesus Had A Real, Earthly, Biological Father Named Larry, And Archeologists Find Larry's Tomb And Do Dna Samples And Prove Beyond A Shadow Of A Doubt That The Virgin Birth Was Just A Bit Of Mythologizing The Gospel Writers Threw In To Appeal To The Followers Of The Mithra And Dionysian Religious Cults That Were Hugely Popular At The Time Of Jesus, Whose Gods Had Virgin Births? Could You Still Be A Christian? Is The Way Of Jesus Still The Best Possible Way To Live?

The Life You Want Begins By Embracing The Life You Have.

When Someone Wrongs Us, We Rarely (if Ever) Want To Do The Same Thing Back. Why? Because We Want To Do Something More Harmful. Likewise, When Someone Insults Us, Our Instinct Is To Search For Words That Will Be More Insulting.revenge Always Escalates.

I Actually Think There Is Hell Because We See Hell Every Day.

I'm Very Comfortable In A Room With Thousands Of People.

It Is Trusting That I Am Loved. That I Always Have Been. That I Always Will Be. I Don't Have To Do Anything. I Don't Have To Prove Anything, Or Achieve Anything, Or Accomplish One More Thing. That, Exactly As I Am, I Am Totally Accepted, Forgiven, And There Is Nothing I Could Ever Do To Lose This Acceptance.

Before Anything Else, You Have Received Breath - The Gift Of Life Itself. The First Word About You Is Gift.

Many People Confuse Religion With God And Walk Away From Them Both. The Point Isn't Christianity, The Point Is Being A Christian.

I Embrace The Term 'evangelical,' If By That We Mean A Belief That We Together Can Actually Work For Change In The World, Caring For The Environment, Extending To The Poor Generosity And Kindness, A Hopeful Outlook. That's A Beautiful Sort Of Thing.

So This Is Reality, This Forgiveness, This Reconciliation, Is True For Everybody. Paul Insisted That When Jesus Died On The Cross, He Was Reconciling "all Things, In Heaven And On Earth, To God." All Things, Everywhere. ...this Reality Then Isn't Something We Make Come True About Ourselves By Doing Something. It Is Already True. Our Choice Is To Live In This New Reality Or Cling To A Reality Of Our Own Making.

To Make It Really Clear And Simple, Let's Call This Movement Across History We See In Passages Like The Ones We Just Looked At From Exodus And Deuteronomy Clicks. What We See Is God Meeting People At The Click They're At, And Then Drawing Them Forward.when They're At F, God Calls Them To G.when We're At L, God Calls Us To M.and If We're Way Back There At A, God Meets Us Way Back There At A And Does What God Always Does: Invites Us Forward To B.

God Gives Us What We Want. For People Who Want Nothing To Do With Peace, Joy, Reconciliation And Peace... God Will Give You What You Want. I See People Make Unbelievably Destructive Choices.

That May Sound A Big Vague, But What Has Struck Me In City After City Is That Despite Our Differences And Diversity, There's A Common Humanity We All Share. In Many Ways We're All Searching And Longing For The Same Things.

Common Humanity

On The Sabbath- We Are Reminded That We Are Not Human Doings, But Human Beings.

The Bible Itself Is A Book That Constantly Must Be Wrestled With And Re-interpreted. ... Bible Interpretation Is Colored By Historical Context, The Reader's Bias And Current Realities. The More You Study The Bible, The More Questions It Raises. It Is Not Possible To Simply Do What The Bible Says.

To Elevate Abstract Doctrines And Dogmas Over Living, Breathing, Embodied Experiences Of God's Love And Grace, Then, Is Going The Wrong Direction. It's Taking Flesh And Turning It Back Into Words.

My Experience Is That Lots Of People Go To Church, Sing The Songs, Tell The Story, Etc But Have Profound Ambivalence About God.

The Fundamental Story Arc Of The Bible Is God Is Passionate About Rescuing This World, Restoring It, Renewing It.

You Can Be Living In A Big House, Driving A Nice Car, Going On Exotic Vacations And Still Be Empty Inside, Crippled With Fear And Dread.

Sociologically, Large Groups Of People Don't Generally Have Massive Changes In Their Belief Instantaneously.

Celebrity Seems Totally At Odds With Authentic Community And Honest, Real Sorts Of Relationships.

I Like To Say That I Practice Militant Mysticism. I'm Really Absolutely Sure Of Some Things That I Don't Quite Know.

For Many, 'desire' Is A Bad Word, Something We're Supposed To 'give Up For God.' That Kind Of Thinking Can Be Really Destructive Because It Teaches People To Deny Their Hearts, Their True Selves.

Everybody Is Following Somebody. Everybody Has Faith In Something And Somebody. We Are All Believers.

Agape Doesn't Love Somebody Because They're Worthy. Agape Makes Them Worthy By The Strength And Power Of Its Love. Agape Doesn't Love Somebody Because They're Beautiful. Agape Loves In Such A Way That It Makes Them Beautiful.

Every Generation Has To Ask Difficult Questions About What Does It Mean To Follow Jesus.

Difficult Questions

Suffering Is Traumatic And Awful And We Get Angry And We Shake Our Fists At The Heavens And We Vent And Rage And Weep. But In The Process We Discover A New Tomorrow, One We Never Would Have Imagined Otherwise.

I Have Met Countless People Who Call Themselves Christians Who Don't Appear To Have Any Living Breathing Vibrant Connection With The Resurrected Christ And I've Met Countless People From Every Religious Background Including Atheists That Tell Me Of Their Very Personal And Real Experiences Of The Living Christ. I Don't Have People Asking Me Why They Should Believe Something - That's Starting Off On The Wrong Foot To Say The Least.

We're Rediscovering Christianity As An Eastern Religion, As A Way Of Life.

We Need A Childlike Trust That God Is Good... Ultimately We Are Ok. That Is A Simple, Beautiful Pure Thing That Can Be Complicated Ferociously By All Sorts Of Intellectual Categories.

And A Lot Of Times, The Religious Discussion Is Almost A Masquerade For The Real Question, Is What Stories That We Tell Ourselves And That We Tell Each Other And What Convictions And Beliefs Actually Have The Capacity To Make Us The Kind Of People Who Together Can Make The World The Kind Of World We All Want It To Be?

The Danger Is That In Reaction To Abuses And Distortions Of An Idea, We'll Reject It Completely. And In The Process Miss Out On The Good Of It, The Worth Of It, The Truth Of It.

I Thought That Christian Was A Noun, A Person Looking For Authenticity. I Never Understood That Idea That A Band Could Be Christian Or Something Could Be Christian. But It Just Can Be And Is.

[the Bible] Has To Be Interpreted. And If It Isn’t Interpreted, Then It Can’t Be Put Into Action. So If We Are Serious About Following God, Then We Have To Interpret The Bible. It Is Not Possible To Simply Do What The Bible Says. We Must First Make Decisions About What It Means At This Time, In This Place, For These People.

Suffering, It Turns Out, Demands Profound Imagination. A New Future Has To Be Conjured Up Because The Old Future Isn't There Anymore.

Freedom Is Not Having Everything We Crave, It's Being Able To Go Without The Things We Crave And Being Ok With It.

Being A Pastor For 20 Years I Realized That The Labels, Agnostic, Atheist, Believer, Everybody's Human And Everybody Wants To Know What Kind Of Universe We're Living In, And Everybody's Living According To A Story.

Enjoy Mystery And Speculation, But Don't Drift Into Dogma.

What Is God Like? Because Millions And Millions Of People Were Taught That The Primary Message - The Center Of The Gospel Of Jesus - Is That God Is Going To Send You To Hell, Unless You Believe In Jesus. And So, What Gets, Subtlely, Sort Of Caught And Taught Is That Jesus Rescues You From God. But What Kind Of God Is That; That We Would Need To Be Rescued From This God? How Could That God Ever Be Good; How Could That God Ever Be Trusted? And How Could That Ever Be Good News.

And This Reality Extends Beyond This Life. Heaven Is Full Of Forgiven People. Hell Is Full Of Forgiven People. Heaven Is Full Of People God Loves, Whom Jesus Died For. Hell Is Full Of Forgiven People God Loves, Whom Jesus Died For. The Difference Is How We Choose To Live, Which Story We Choose To Live In, Which Version Of Reality We Trust.

You're Here, You're Breathing, You Are The Recipient Of An Extraordinary Act Of Generosity Called Life.

Why Blame The Dark For Being Dark? It Is Far More Helpful To Ask Why The Light Isn’t As Bright As It Could Be.

The Moment God Is Figured Out With Nice Neat Lines And Definitions, We Are No Longer Dealing With God.

If The Gospel Isn't Good News For Everybody, Then It Isn't Good News For Anybody.

We Shape Our God, And Then Our God Shapes Us.

Hope. People Want Hope. We Crave Hope. We Long For Hope. Hope Has Been Present Since The Very Beginning. And Almost In The Worst Situations Of Human History, You Often Find The Greatest Amount Of Hope. The Very Nature Of The Situation, The Way Stepped-on People Created Within Them Even More Hope Than When Things Were Going Fine. Hope Has Always Been Around.

Worst Situation

Many Of The Most Significant Moments In Our Lives Come Not Because It All Went Right But Because It All Fell Apart

Questions Are Not Scary. What Is Scary Is When People Don’t Have Any. What Is Tragic Is Faith That Has No Room For Them.

Love Frees Us To Embrace All Of Our History, The History In Which All Things Are Being Made New.

It Often Takes Suffering And Lost In Order To Remind Us Of How Precious Life Is.

That Breath That You Just Took, That's A Gift!

Your Life Is A Gift. Before Anything Else Can Be Said About You, For Some Reason The Universe (or God, Or Being, Or Force, Or Reality, Or Whatever You Name It) Chose To Give You Life.

I Got Into Pastoring Because Of The Art Form. I Started A Church, But I Felt The Art Form Needed To Be Freed For All People. A Particular Religion Over Others Was Never Interesting To Me. I Wanted To Talk To People About What It Means To Be Alive And What It Means To Be Human.

The Peace We Are Offered Is Not A Peace That Is Free From Tragedy, Illness, Bankruptcy, Divorce, Depression, Or Heartache. It Is Peace Rooted In The Trust That The Life Jesus Gives Us Is Deeper, Wider, Stronger, And More Enduring Than Whatever Our Current Circumstances Are, Because All We See Is Not All There Is And The Last Word About Us And Our Struggle Has Not Yet Been Spoken.

If We Are Serious About Loving Someone, We Have To Surrender All The Desires Within Us To Manipulate The Relationship.

We Need To Return To The Simplicity That God Is Love.

A Good Sermon Is Going To Disturb The Comfortable And Comfort The Disturbed. It Inspires You. It Provokes You. It Should Make Your Soul Soar.

The First Word About You Is That You Received This Life.

Often The People Most Concerned About Others Going To Hell When They Die Seem Less Concerned With The Hells On Earth Right Now, While The People Most Concerned With The Hells On Earth Right Now Seem The Least Concerned About Hell After Death.

One Truth Is That Suffering Raises Profound Questions With The Universe. The Other Truth Is That Grace, Gift And Generosity Also Raise Profound Questions.

For A Lot Of People In Our World Today, God Has Become About Believing The Right Stuff So You Don't Get In Trouble.

You Can Set Your Intention To Better Understand Your Soul, Your Spirit, Through Daily Practices Like Prayer, Yoga And Meditation, Etc.

This Is Misguided And Toxic And Ultimately Subverts The Contagious Spread Of Jesus' Message Of Love, Peace, Forgiveness And Joy That Our World Desperately Needs To Hear.

At The Center Of The Christian Tradition Since The First Church Have Been A Number Who Insist That History Is Not Tragic, Hell Is Not Forever, And Love, In The End, Wins And All Will Be Reconciled To God.

We Embrace Truth Wherever We Find It From Whoever Says It However We Come Across It. It's A Big Beautiful Exotic Heartbreaking Mysterious World We Live In And It's Our Home And We Get To Explore And Learn And Affirm Truth Wherever We Find It.

Grace Is When You Know You're Loved Exactly As You Are.

When The Lab Rats Hear The Bell Ringing, They Freeze. That's What Fear Does To You - Fear Stops You Dead In Your Tracks. Fear Can Keep You From Harm, But Fear Can Also Rob You Of Your Potential. Fear Can Rob You Of An Experience. Fear Can Rob You Of Happiness. Fear Can Rob You Of Real Life... Darkness Has A Way Of Scaring Us.

It's Absurd And Quite Tragic The Way People Have Managed To Pit Science Against Faith. They Aren't In Conflict At All - They're Long Lost Dance Partners. I Don't Divide The World Up Into Christians And Other People - We Are All Human Beings, Brothers And Sisters, And We Embrace Truth Wherever We Find It, Whether That's In A Lab, A Field Or A Cathedral. Because Sometimes You Need A Scientist And Sometimes You Need A Poet.

I Live With The Understanding That Truth Is Bigger Than Any Religion And The World Is God's And Everything In It.

I Do A Meet And Greet After Every Show In Which I Tell The Audience That I Would Love To Thank Every Single One Of Them For Coming. Which A Lot Of People Take Me Up On! So I Get To Meet Hundreds And Hundreds Of People Every Night, Night After Night.

God Is Bigger Than The Christian Faith.

Christian Faith

It Is Such A Letdown To Rise From The Dead And Have Your Friends Not Recognize You.

There's Way Too Much Wonder And Mystery All Around Us To Not Stay Open To More That's Going On Here. You Can Wake Up, And Sense And Feel And Taste And Hear A Whole World Right Here Within This One, Right Here In This Breath You're About To Take.

The Joy Is In The Creation. So I've Never Had A Target Audience, It's Always Been About Being True To The Work As It Emerges.

Target Audience

The Great German Scholar Helmut Thielicke Once Said That A Person Who Speaks To This Hour’s Need Will Always Be Skirting The Edge Of Heresy, But Only The Person Who Risks Those Heresies Can Gain The Truth.

If It Is True, If It Is Beautiful, If It Is Honorable, If It Is Right, Then Claim It. Because It Is From God. And You Belong To God.

Whether We Are Reading The Bible For The First Time Or Standing In A Field In Israel Next To A Historian And An Archaeologist And A Scholar, The Bible Meets Us Where We Are. That Is What Truth Does

You Can Be Very Religious And Invoke The Name Of God And Be Able To Quote Lots Of Verses And Be Well Versed In Complicated Theological Systems And Yet Not Be A Person Who Sees. It’s One Thing To Sing About God And Recite Quotes About God And Invoke God’s Name; It’s Another Be Aware Of The Presence In Every Taste, Touch, Sound, And Embrace. With Jesus, What We See Again And Again Is That It’s Never Just A Person, Or Just A Meal, Or Just An Event, Because There’s Always More Going On Just Below The Surface.

Jesus Is God's Way Of Refusing To Give Up His Dream For The World.

If Your Faith Is Threatened By Something That's True, Then It Wasn't Much Of A Faith To Begin With, Was It?

When We Get To What Happens When We Die, We Don't Have Any Video Footage. So Let's At Least Be Honest That We Are Speculating, Because We Are.

Culture Is Already There And The Church Will Continue To Be Even More Irrelevant When It Quotes Letters From Two Thousand Years Ago As Their Best Defense. When You Have In Front Of You Flesh And Blood People Who Are Your Brothers And Sisters, Aunts And Uncles, Co-workers And Neighbors And They Love Each Other And They Just Want To Go Through Life With Someone.

The Best Team Does Not Always Win, It's The Team That Plays The Best.

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