Sublime
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Because the event of salvation was released from its isolation in sacred time, all time, be it spent nursing babies or plowing fields, bore the responsibility of the sacred. All believers were now priests, because all parts of life witnessed to salvation.
Andrew Root • The Pastor in a Secular Age (Ministry in a Secular Age Book #2): Ministry to People Who No Longer Need a God
The body of Christ is made of all kinds of people, some of whom I find obnoxious, arrogant, self-righteous, or misguided (charges, I’m sure, others have rightly applied to me).
Tish Harrison Warren • Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life
“Managed” Religion, which somehow needs to create co-dependency (“learned
helplessness”) among its members, preferred to emphasize “original sin” instead.
This has kept us united but disempowered in inferiority instead of empowered and
united by dignity—which is our only real future. The negative result, however, has
been the immense self doubt, guilt
No person, whoever he or she is or wherever he or she lives, is denied the grasp of God’s heart. We are cherished by God, hunted by God, redeemed by God. And having experienced this, we are reminded that we are called to be bearers of God’s love and truth, and, as bearers, we are to bring that love and truth into our culture, where there exist the
... See moreGary Smith • Radical Compassion: Finding Christ in the Heart of the Poor
But preaching the Gospel is a function of trying to reach the human heart, whether people are poor or rich or middle class. And the bad breaks and tragic mysteries of life exist in plenitude in a city parish.
Gary Smith • Radical Compassion: Finding Christ in the Heart of the Poor
In her novel Stones from the River, set in Nazi Germany, Ursula Hegi reveals the suffering of the “other” in a startling way.
Tara Brach • Radical Acceptance
But this prodding would no longer come from a set-apart holy man, consecrated by enchanted oil or a Yale degree. Rather, Henry’s prodding was done as “one of us.” Henry threw off any sense that he was a class above or beyond, as so many clergy embodied.
Andrew Root • The Pastor in a Secular Age (Ministry in a Secular Age Book #2): Ministry to People Who No Longer Need a God
The pastor is not the one who saves people from any or all of the impingements. Rather, the pastor is the one who reminds the community that though God seems absent, nevertheless the God who is a minister arrives right here in the middle of such events of impingement, when things seem so hard.