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"I see the Church spending 20% of its energy on the things that make 80% of its impact and 80% of its energy looking in the mirror."

— Nathan Peterson, “Church is Not Cool.”

(Source: nathanpeterson)

Malcolm Gladwell: the Revolution will not be Tweeted. →

“The marvels of communication technology in the present have produced a false consciousness about the past—even a sense that communication has no history, or had nothing of importance to consider before the days of television and the Internet.” But there is something else at work here, in the outsized enthusiasm for social media. Fifty years after one of the most extraordinary episodes of social upheaval in American history (civil rights), we seem to have forgotten what activism is.

"I hear so many Christians murmuring about their imperfections and their failures and their addictions and their shortcomings and I see so little war! “Murmur, murmur, murmur, why am I this way?” MAKE WAR! … If you wonder how to make war go to the manual. Don’t just bellyache about your failures. Make war!"

— Dr. John Piper, How to Kill Sin

thoughts on communion from Nathan Peterson: "Small Bread" →

Then Jesus passed around the smallest most crunchy piece of “bread” the disciples had ever seen along with a quarter-sip of grape juice to wash it down. He instructed them to face forward, ignore each other, to think about how we was going to die for them and how sucky that made them, and then once they had accepted that fact they could down the bread and the juice. (The key here is to wait until you get together, then completely ignore each other. Don’t smile.) Then He instructed them to repeat this process once per week for the rest of eternity.

I’m not complaining about the size of the bread. But I think the size may be indicative of the state of the entire process as it stands in the American Church today.

Maybe it’s time to re-think this.

-np

"

What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.”

"

— Blog Action Day 2008 | James 2:14-18