Quotes about Engagement

We don't wait for things to happen to us; we happen to things.

Keep your foot [give your mind to what you are doing]. Ecclesiastes 5:1

We convince by our presence.

Answer That you are here---that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

The crowd, in its uncritical political engagement, is not always discerning about new possibility that comes with risk and often votes in fear for the status quo.

history consists primarily of speaking and being answered, crying and being heard. If that is true, it means there can be no history in the empire because the cries are never heard and the speaking is never answered. And if the task of prophecy is to empower people to engage in history, then it means evoking cries that expect answers, learning to address them where they will be taken seriously, and ceasing to look to the numbed and dull empire that never intended to answer in the first place.

Thus the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is an act of trust in the subversive, exodus-causing God of the first commandment, an act of submission to the restful God of commandments one, two, and three. Sabbath is a practical divestment so that neighborly engagement, rather than production and consumption, defines our lives.

1. The first partner in the meeting is the text.

the church is, in my judgment, called to its public vocation to practice neighborliness in a way that includes both support of policies of distributive justice and practices of face-to-face restorative generosity.

We must have a citizenship less concerned about what the government can do for it and more anxious about what it can do for the nation.

Never have there been so many words and images coming at us 24/7. They come through our senses and enter our minds. But so many of them are worthless and lead to worthless thoughts. Never has there been a greater need to watch what we watch, to monitor what we see and hear, to protect our children from the enemy's assault through worthless things and images.

Discipleship in the church today has more to do with consuming and absorbing cognitive content than it has anything to do with missional action.