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“We have been called to heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart, and to bring home those who have lost their way.”

St. Francis of Assisi

“Worship is no longer worship when it reflects the culture around us more than the Christ within us.”

A.W. Tozer

“Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion—its message becomes meaningless.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel, “God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism”

When Jesus came to Golgotha
They hanged Him on a tree,
They drove great nails through hands and feet,
And made a Calvary.
They crowned Him with a crown of thorns;
Red were His wounds and deep,
For those were crude and cruel days,
And human flesh was cheap.

When Jesus came to Birmingham,
They simply passed Him by;
They never hurt a hair of Him,
They only let Him die.
For men had grown more tender,
And they would not give Him pain;
They only just passed down the street,
And left Him in the rain.

Still Jesus cried, “Forgive them,
For they know not what they do.”
And still it rained the winter rain
That drenched Him through and through.
The crowds went home and left the streets
Without a soul to see;
And Jesus crouched against a wall
And cried for Calvary.

“Lord of the Rings – Fellowship of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien
“Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers” by J.R.R. Tolkien
“the Book of Enoch” by Enoch
“Untangling Emotions: God’s Gift of Emotions” by J. Alasdair Groves
“When Everything’s on Fire: Faith Forged from the Ashes” by Brian Zahnd
“Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way” by Walter Wink
“Befriending Silence” by Carl McColman
“Dirty Glory: Go Where Your Best Prayers Take You” by Pete Greig
“The Power of Place: Choosing Stability in a Rootless Age” by Daniel Grothe
“Living Without Enemies: Being Present in the Midst of Violence” by Samuel Wells
“Atomic Power with God with Fasting and Prayer” by Franklin Hall
“Why Revival Tarries” by Leonard Ravenhill
“What is the Bible” by Robb Bell
“The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Chaos, Reorder” by Richard Rohr
“Faith Unraveled” by Rachel Held Evans
“Streams in the Wasteland” by Andrew Arndt
“The Way of the Heart” by Henri Nouwen
“The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis
“The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” by C. S. Lewis
“The Horse and His Boy” by C.S. Lewis
“Prince Caspian” by C.S. Lewis
“Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Endless Compassion” by Gregory Boyle
“Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship” by Gregory Boyle
“The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness” by Gregory Boyle
“Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools” by Tyler Staton
“The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” by C. S. Lewis
“The Silver Chair” by C. S. Lewis
“True Self/False Self” by Richard Rohr
“The Last Battle” by C. S. Lewis
“Lord of the Ring: A Journey in Search of Count Zinzendorf” by Phil Anderson
“A Tale of Three Kings” by Gene Edwards
“The Ministry of Intercessory Prayer” by Andrew Murray
“The Narrative of Sojourner Truth” by Sojourner Truth
“Vanishing Grace” by Philip Yancey

“Only half of the pastor’s work is to gather the people together for worship. The other half is to send them back to their daily tasks equipped to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. If we forget this second part, the other can be positively dangerous.”

-Lesslie Newbigin

“It makes all the difference in the world whether I view my neighbor as a potential convert or as someone whom God already loves.”

Philip Yancey, “Vanishing Grace”

Here is my harvest of heartbreak
Here is my threshing of tears
I’d give you my dream but I lost it
Down in the locust years
Still praise is the song that I’m singing
Even though sorrow’s my tune
My love is only a whisper now
But nothing is wasted with you

Here is my secret miscarriage
Here is my public divorce
Nobody taught me to let go
So I learned how to beat a dead horse
Now all of my altars are empty
Except for this lone hallelu
The heat of your fire’s just a memory
But nothing is wasted with you

Hungry as a mother who cannot find her child
We keep missing each other I’m in the liquor aisle
Prostrated in your glory I am bowed low under this
Either nothing is wasted or everything is

Here in the Holy of holies
Here by the blood of the lamb
Words I have said all my life and believe
But still I do not understand
But I want to live in your presence
However inopportune
The heat of your fire’s just a memory
But nothing is wasted with you
My love is only a whisper now
But nothing is wasted with you

“I would like to encourage you to stop thinking of what you’re doing as ministry. Start realizing that your ministry is how much of a tip you leave when you eat in a restaurant; when you leave a hotel room whether you leave it all messed up or not; whether you flush your own toilet or not. Your ministry is the way that you love people.“

Rich Mullins

“To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible. It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery. It is to take pride in a victory won by one’s comrades. It is to feel, when setting one’s stone, that one is contributing to the building of the world.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry​​​​​​​​

“Truly He taught us to love one another
His law is Love and His gospel is Peace
Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother
And in his name all oppression shall cease.”

Verse 3 of ‘O Holy Night’

“The church has an obligation not to join in the incantation of political slogans and in the concoction of pseudo-events, but to cut clear through the deviousness and ambiguity of both slogans and events by her simplicity and her love.”

– Thomas Merton, Violence and Faith

“We men and women are all in the same boat, upon a stormy sea. We owe to each other a terrible and tragic loyalty.”

– G.K. Chesterton

It’s a funny thing that I always assume the way God should work, is the way that always benefits me the most.

“If you have two coats, you have stolen one from the poor.”

– Dorothy Day

“How is it that no one ever makes a mistake on purpose but mistakes get made all the time?”

Edward De Bono

“The essence of Christianity does not consist in being pious but in being joyous.”

Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf