Quotes about Engagement

So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is. See things from his perspective.

There is nothing more common than for people who want to talk about God to lose interest in the people they are talking to.

All serious and good writing anticipates precisely this kind of reading-ruminative and leisurely, a dalliance with words in contrast to wolfing down information.

When we read more books, look at more pictures, listen to more music, than we can possibly absorb the result of such gluttony is not a cultured mind but a consuming one; what it reads, looks at, listens to, is immediately forgotten, leaving no more traces behind it than yesterday's newspaper.

We need alert listeners to give dignity to those stretches in our lives when we are not aware of participating in anything we think might be embraced by the kingdom of God.

The primary practice of language is not in giving out information but being in relationship.

Somehow, though he moves right in front of me, I don't see him; quietly but surely he's active, and I miss it.

It is not easy to convey a sense of wonder, let alone resurrection wonder, to another. It's the very nature of wonder to catch us off guard, to circumvent expectations and assumptions. Wonder can't be packaged, and it can't be worked up. It requires some sense of being there and some sense of engagement.

Speaking to people does not have the same personal intensity as listening to them. The question I put to myself is not 'How many people have you spoken to about Christ this week?' but 'How many people have you listened to in Christ this week?

People want something that's relevant to their lives. They want something that means something to them, and they want something where it seems like people have thought about what they're saying.

Activate yourself to duty by remembering your position, who you are, and what you have obliged yourself to be.

I mean if you stay engaged, and are constantly fighting, you don't have time to regenerate. So sometimes you have to take time to renew your strength and energy, so that you can come back and fight again in a constructive way.