Quotes about Involvement

Our vocation is not something we do for God- which would put the burden on us to perform and achieve. Instead, it is a way we participate in God's work. For God himself is engaged not only in the work of salvation, but also in the work of preserving and maintaining His creation.

Lethargy is evident in churches when the people have no sense of ownership.

A new world will be won not by those who stand at a distance with their arms folded.

René Dubois, "Piensa globalmente, actúa localmente"

The key to changing the world is not simply being there, but an active, transforming engagement of a singularly robust and energetic kind.

Depression tends to turn us away from the everyday things of God's creation. But whenever God steps in, His inspiration is to do the most natural, simple things--things we would never have imagined God was in, but as we do them we find Him there.

If people don't weigh in, they can't buy in.

I have talked with many pastors whose real struggle isn't first with the hardship of ministry, the lack of appreciation and involvement of people, or difficulties with fellow leaders. No, the real struggle they are having, one that is very hard for a pastor to admit, is with God. What has caused ministry to become hard and burdensome is disappointment and anger with God.

I am persuaded that the church today has many more consumers than committed participants.

Many, many believers think of their church as a place to attend rather than something with which they are intimately involved.

Many Christians also live inside the church virtually unknown. They slip in and out of the weekly service almost unnoticed. Sure, they will exchange niceties with the people near them, and if they do that, they will learn a few cursory details about one another's lives, but they don't really have a relationship with the people with whom they worship.

They are to join you and attend to the duties of the Tent of Meeting, doing all the work at the Tent; but no outsider may come near you.