So Beautiful Post #3
So the other day I finally finished the Leonard Sweet book "So Beautiful" dealing with "the divine design for life and church" that Sweet says is "MRI- Missional, Relational, and Incarnational". I enjoyed reading this book as I haven't read anything lately from him. He is coming to Lancaster in August, but I won't be able to see him at the Parish Resource Center due to being on vacation...but someone from the church who works there says that she'll get the book signed for me...which is nice.
There is so much in the 3 chapters that it would take me pages and pages just to share what spoke to me in each chapter. As I said before the book is separated into 3 chapters, 1 chapter for Missional, 1 chapter for Relational, and 1 chapter for Incarnational.
Here is a smattering of quotes from each chapter that stood out to me.
"Sometimes missional is not going anywhere but being missional where you are."
"Which takes more bravery and initiative? Knock unannounced on the door of your next-door neighbor's house? Or travel halfway around the world to build a house for a stranger as part of a church mission trip? The closer you get to home, the more ingrained the inertia and expected rules of behavior."
"The mission of the church is to continue Christ's ministy on earth."
"The question is not a church-going community but a non-going church."
"To build a non-going church, you make sure that the bond with Jesus is weak, that every decision is tepid and triple-checked, and dissuade people from taking risks."
"The church can never be "on a mission" because that presupposes an "off" switch, and you can't be "off mission" and still be a church. The church is mission."
"The ultimate story of the Bible, the metanarrative that unlocks the whole story, is that God is on a mission, and we are summoned to participate with God in that mission."
"We are more concerned with winning arguments and battles than winning friends and losing the self in truces of truth."
"A Jesus disciple is a channeler of truth, beauty, and goodness, one who lives Christ's life into the world, one whose being is a convection current of love with high conductivity."
"We don't serve a propositional, attractional, or colonial God. We serve a missional, relational, and incarnational God."
"I find that my faith suffers nothing by leaving a thousand questions open, so long as I am convinced of two or three main lines."
"Hold to Christ, and for the rest be totally uncommitted."
"It is extremely difficult for the church to think of church less as a place and more of a set of relationships, a network of networks that can be nourished in multiple spaces. The church is not a set of propositions, buildings, or beliefs: The church is a network of relationships...with God, with the Scriptures, with each other, with creation."
"Our starting point is not telling people where they should be, but being with people where they already are 'while going' and catching up to the Spirit."
"But the incarnation blows the distinction between the sacred and the secular out of the water."
"It is wisely said that Christians who marry the spirit of the age will soon find themselves widowed, but it is equally wisely said that those reacting against this temptation might find themselves simply opposing the spirit of the age with the spirit of a former age."
"When Paul addressed the crowd at Athens in Greece, he never quotes a scriptural text, but takes a page out of their own books and calls them to 'repent'"
"You are the body of Christ: that is to say, in you and through you the work of the Incarnation must go forward. You are meant to incarnate in your lives the theme of adoration- you are to be taken, consecrated, broken and distributed, that you may be the means of grace and vehicles of Eternal Charity."
I could probably keep going as they is much in the book that really connected with my reality of planting Veritas as "A Missional Community of Authentic Worshippers." I would recommend getting this book if you have interest in the missional conversation.
There is so much in the 3 chapters that it would take me pages and pages just to share what spoke to me in each chapter. As I said before the book is separated into 3 chapters, 1 chapter for Missional, 1 chapter for Relational, and 1 chapter for Incarnational.
Here is a smattering of quotes from each chapter that stood out to me.
"Sometimes missional is not going anywhere but being missional where you are."
"Which takes more bravery and initiative? Knock unannounced on the door of your next-door neighbor's house? Or travel halfway around the world to build a house for a stranger as part of a church mission trip? The closer you get to home, the more ingrained the inertia and expected rules of behavior."
"The mission of the church is to continue Christ's ministy on earth."
"The question is not a church-going community but a non-going church."
"To build a non-going church, you make sure that the bond with Jesus is weak, that every decision is tepid and triple-checked, and dissuade people from taking risks."
"The church can never be "on a mission" because that presupposes an "off" switch, and you can't be "off mission" and still be a church. The church is mission."
"The ultimate story of the Bible, the metanarrative that unlocks the whole story, is that God is on a mission, and we are summoned to participate with God in that mission."
"We are more concerned with winning arguments and battles than winning friends and losing the self in truces of truth."
"A Jesus disciple is a channeler of truth, beauty, and goodness, one who lives Christ's life into the world, one whose being is a convection current of love with high conductivity."
"We don't serve a propositional, attractional, or colonial God. We serve a missional, relational, and incarnational God."
"I find that my faith suffers nothing by leaving a thousand questions open, so long as I am convinced of two or three main lines."
"Hold to Christ, and for the rest be totally uncommitted."
"It is extremely difficult for the church to think of church less as a place and more of a set of relationships, a network of networks that can be nourished in multiple spaces. The church is not a set of propositions, buildings, or beliefs: The church is a network of relationships...with God, with the Scriptures, with each other, with creation."
"Our starting point is not telling people where they should be, but being with people where they already are 'while going' and catching up to the Spirit."
"But the incarnation blows the distinction between the sacred and the secular out of the water."
"It is wisely said that Christians who marry the spirit of the age will soon find themselves widowed, but it is equally wisely said that those reacting against this temptation might find themselves simply opposing the spirit of the age with the spirit of a former age."
"When Paul addressed the crowd at Athens in Greece, he never quotes a scriptural text, but takes a page out of their own books and calls them to 'repent'"
"You are the body of Christ: that is to say, in you and through you the work of the Incarnation must go forward. You are meant to incarnate in your lives the theme of adoration- you are to be taken, consecrated, broken and distributed, that you may be the means of grace and vehicles of Eternal Charity."
I could probably keep going as they is much in the book that really connected with my reality of planting Veritas as "A Missional Community of Authentic Worshippers." I would recommend getting this book if you have interest in the missional conversation.
posted by Ryan at 9:43 AM
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