David Speakman

“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”

– Tertullian

“How little people know who think that holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing . . . it is irresistible.”

– C.S. Lewis

“Albert Einstein once said that we live in an age of perfect means and confused ends. The question which is inherent in that statement I consider to be the most important question of our times. It has to do with the boredom which is deadly, with the emptiness which frightens us, but also with the fulfillments which make life worth living. It has to do with the crucial task which has been set for us, namely, to distinguish between the “means,” which make our life easier, and the “meaning” of our life, which is the only thing that makes life possible. Even the person who has perfectly solved the problem of the means can still perish in suicide because a life without meaning is dreadful. And this dreadfulness actually increases as the outward course of this life grows smoother.

I can express what I mean by this as a Christian in the words of our Lord: “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?” All the means of mastering the world can turn a man into a fool if he overlooks the crucial question. That this should not happen, I consider the most important question of our time.”

– Helmut Thielicke

“All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.”

– Flannery O’Connor

“I lost fear in the black belt when I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into the Lord’s death and Resurrection, that in the only sense that really matters I am already dead, and my life is hid with Christ in God . . . I began to lose self-righteousness when I discovered the extent to which my behavior was motivated by worldly desires and by the self-seeking messianism of Yankee deliverance! The point is simply, of course, that one’s motives are usually mixed, and one had better know it.”

– Jonathan Myrick Daniels

“Let the world despise and leave me
They have left my Saviour, too
Human hearts and looks deceive me
Thou art not like them, untrue
Oh, while thou dost smile upon me
God of wisdom, love and might
Foes may hate and friends disown me
Show thy face and all is bright

Soul, then know thy full salvation
Rise over sin and fear and care
Joy to find in every station
Something still to do or bear
Think what Spirit dwells within thee
Think what Father’s smiles are thine
Think that Jesus died to win thee
Child of heaven, canst thou repine?”

– Henry Lyte, “Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken”

“If the churches came to understand that the greatest threat to faith today is not hedonism but distraction, perhaps they might begin to appeal anew to a frazzled digital generation. Christian leaders seem to think that they need more distraction to counter the distraction. Their services have degenerated into emotional spasms, their spaces drowned with light and noise and locked shut throughout the day when their darkness and silence might actually draw those whose minds and souls have grown web-weary.”

Andrew Sullivan

 “I believe in the power of distraction.”

Woody Allen

 “A personal gospel without a social gospel is like a soul without a body. A social gospel without a personal gospel is like a body without a soul. One is a ghost. The other is a corpse.”

Bryan Chapell

“Perhaps the most common invitation to cynicism about the church is hypocrisy. Cynicism’s standard cliché about the church is that it is “filled with hypocrites.” This is a curiously powerless criticism. Of course it is filled with hypocrites. What else is new? Hospitals are filled with sick people. Hypocrisy is a human problem, not a distinctively Christian problem. Is anyone suggesting that there is no hypocrisy outside of the church? . . . Just because hypocrisy is so widespread, almost normal, this does not lessen its seriousness. Jesus reserved some of the most stinging rebukes for hypocrites. He repeated, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” no less than seven times in one chapter (Matthew 23) as he denounced one hypocrisy after another in the religious leadership. They crucified him at the end of the week.”

Dick Keyes

“I hate, I despise your festivals,
and take no delight in your solemn assemblies . . .
Take away the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

Amos

“The fear of God is that affectionate reverence, by which the child of God bends himself humbly and carefully to his Father’s law.”

Charles Bridges

“Evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find the bread.”

D. Thambyrajah Niles

“Words without deeds are empty, but deeds without words are dumb.”

Lesslie Newbigin

“The biggest problem with poverty is the shame that comes with it. When you give the best you have to someone in need, it translates into something much deeper to the receiver. It means that they are worthy. If it’s not good enough for you, it’s not good enough for those in need either. Giving the best you have does more than feed an empty belly – it feeds the soul.”

Kristine Levine

“The priority for the Church is neither evangelism nor social action; it is to live under the lordship of Christ . . . As a Christian learns to live her life under the lordship of Jesus Christ, as she learns to adopt his perspective on money, sex, power, time and eternity and live her life in the light of these, then she will become the kind of person who provokes questions in the minds of her twenty-first century non-Christian neighbours.”

Graham Tomlin, The Provocative Church

“What is the normal Christian life? What are we hoping to see cultivated in people? We are constantly driving people to make a big splash. Once or twice a year, a group comes along with a plan to ‘take Auburn by storm.’ There is always a lot of noise and clamor, a lot of labor and money spent, and for a moment everyone (the Christians at least) look up to see what’s going on. As quickly as it appears, it disappears. Some get excited and want to make more noise next year. But for the most part the noise fades and people go back to the business at hand. And that is where the church ought to meet people, in the ‘business at hand’ – the ordinary, mundane duties and experiences that make up the larger portion of our lives. Jesus said the whole sum of Christian living was loving God and loving our neighbor. Did He mean for us to work that out in an arena or in our minute by minute ordinary lives? The more difficult and yet truest and most meaningful spirituality is that which deals with Jesus in everything . . . Many Christians will never notice or recognize this as ministry because it makes so little noise. So what. God brings extraordinary things out of the ordinary.”

Steve Malone