Quotes about Flourishing

Theology is in crisis, largely because it has lost its nerve and forgotten its purpose to help discern, articulate, and commend compelling visions of flourishing life in light of God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ.

What is needed is a biblically rooted,30 patristically guided,31 ecclesially located, and publicly engaged theology, done in critical conversation with the sciences and the various disciplines of the humanities, at the center of which is the question of the flourishing life.

Everything else follows from this responsibility to those who have come before us. It is the root of flourishing humanity.

Male and female callings are not separate issues. They are interwoven, interdependent, and inseparable in the Bible. God didn't create a world where one gender can flourish at the expense of the other. In God's world, the true flourishing of one depends on and promotes the full flourishing of the other. In fact, God's kingdom purposes for the world hinge on how well we both flourish and pull together to serve him.

These new times require new strategies for making faith real in people's lives. Nothing drives home the need for such innovation as attempting to connect (or reconnect) with the de-churched. Their dismissal of Christian churches is not mean-spirited; it simply reflects the firsthand experiences that led them to conclude churches are ill-equipped to support the flourishing life they hope for.

Every human being has a strategic role in God's purposes for the world. Every human being possesses a derived significance--grounded in God himself. And every human being is summoned to the highest of all possible aspirations--not to be God, but 'to be like' God himself. God is the standard for who we are and what our mission is in this world. By pursuing this loftiest of all goals, we move toward true flourishing as human beings.

I am like a flourishing olive tree in the house of God; I trust in God's faithful love forever and ever. Psalm 52:8

Happiness is prosperity combined with virtue.

They understood that America would not flourish without great help from all Americans.

The most oft-cited line of Newman's An Essay on the Development of Doctrine is situated in this context: "In a higher world it may be otherwise; but here below, to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often." So indeed, Pope John's Newman-like image of the "flourishing garden of life" effectively holds off a stuffy traditionalism.

You're the only girl I've seen for a long time that actually did look like something blooming.

You may be in the middle of a setback, in the middle of a silent season, in the middle of mourning, that is not the end. God has a flourishing finish for you. He hasn't brought you this far to leave you. Your greatest victories are not behind you; they're in front of you.