Journey Inward, Journey Outward by Elizabeth O'Connor
I've just started reading this great book telling some of the story of Church of the Saviour. Here are some of my favourite quotes so far...
On community
"Peace is not the object of Christian fellowship, though we have thought it was and have maintained "good" relationships at the terrible expense of not being real with each other. When this happens, we forego being a people on a pilgrimage together."
"Peace is not the object of Christian fellowship, though we have thought it was and have maintained "good" relationships at the terrible expense of not being real with each other. When this happens, we forego being a people on a pilgrimage together."
On the Outward Journey
"If prayer does not drive us out into some concrete involvement at a point of the world's need, then we must question prayer. If the community of our Christian brothers does not deliver us from false securities and safe opinions and known ways, then we must cry out against that community, for it betrays."
"If prayer does not drive us out into some concrete involvement at a point of the world's need, then we must question prayer. If the community of our Christian brothers does not deliver us from false securities and safe opinions and known ways, then we must cry out against that community, for it betrays."
On gifts
Quoting Gordon Cosby
"We are not sent into the world in order to make people good. We are not sent to encourage them to do their duty. The reason people have resisted the Gospel is that we have gone out to make people good, to help them do their duty, to impose new burdens on them, rather than calling forth the gift which is the essence of the person himself...They can be what in their deepest hearts they know they were intended to be, they can do what they were meant to do."
Quoting Gordon Cosby
"We are not sent into the world in order to make people good. We are not sent to encourage them to do their duty. The reason people have resisted the Gospel is that we have gone out to make people good, to help them do their duty, to impose new burdens on them, rather than calling forth the gift which is the essence of the person himself...They can be what in their deepest hearts they know they were intended to be, they can do what they were meant to do."
"We begin," Gordon said, "by exercising our own gifts. The person who is having the time of his life doing what he is doing has a way of calling forth the deeps of another. Such a person is Good News. He is not saying the good news. He is the Good News."