"Whether we are reading the Bible for the first time or standing in a field in Israel next to a historian and an archaeologist and a scholar, the Bible meets us where we are. That is what truth does"
— Rob Bell (Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith)

"Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God made you to be. And anything else you do is sin and you need to repent of it."
— Rob Bell (Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith)

"The danger is that in reaction to abuses and distortions of an idea, we'll reject it completely. And in the process miss out on the good of it, the worth of it, the truth of it."
— Rob Bell (Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality And Spirituality)

"[The Bible] has to be interpreted. And if it isn’t interpreted, then it can’t be put into action. So if we are serious about following God, then we have to interpret the Bible. It is not possible to simply do what the Bible says. We must first make decisions about what it means at this time, in this place, for these people."
— Rob Bell (Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith)

"Salvation is the entire universe being brought back into harmony with its maker."
— Rob Bell (Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith)

"Agape doesn't love somebody because they're worthy.

Agape makes them worthy by the strength and power of its love.

Agape doesn't love somebody because they're beautiful.

Agape loves in such a way that it makes them beautiful."
— Rob Bell (Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality And Spirituality)

"'Christian' makes a poor adjective"
— Rob Bell

"Missions then is less about the transportation of God from one place to another and more about the identification of a God who is already there [...] You see God where others don't. And then you point him out. So the issue isn't so much taking Jesus to people who don't have him, but going to a place and pointing out to the people the creative, life-giving God who is already present in their midst. "
— Rob Bell

"Because with every action, comment, conversation, we have the choice to invite Heaven or Hell to Earth."
— Rob Bell

"The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God."
— Rob Bell (Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith)

"Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining."
— Anne Lamott

"Your problem is how you are going to spend this one and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.

From her graduation commencement address to Berkeley."
— Anne Lamott

"It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life."
— Anne Lamott (Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith)

"Certainty is missing the point entirely."
— Anne Lamott (Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith)

"No" is a complete sentence."
— Anne Lamott

""The more isolated and disconnected we are, the more shattered and distorted our self-identity. We are not healthy when we are alone. We find ourselves when we connect to others. Without community we don't know who we are...
When we live outside of healthy community, we not only lose others. We lose ourselves...Who we understand ourselves to be is dramatically affected for better or worse by those we hold closest to us.""
— Erwin McManus

""I"m often accused of being irreligious, and I suppose it's for this very reason. Whether it's Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Judaism, or any other ism, when a religioin is created on the subtle premise that God withholds his love and you must submit to the system to earn that love, I consider it the worst of corruptions...
For centuries, the church has been telling us that if we want God to love us, we need to follow the rules. It's been far more important to focus on the sin problem than the love problem.""
— Erwin McManus

""How is it, that for many of us, being a good Christian is nothing more than being a good person? The entire focus of our faith has been the elimination of sin, which is important but inadequate; rather than the unleashing of a unique, original, extraordinary, wonderfully untamed, faith." "
— Erwin McManus

"I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal."
— Jane Austen

"Teach us...... that we may feel the importance of every day, of every hour, as it passes.


"
— Jane Austen

"If the gospel isn't good news for everybody, then it isn't good news for anybody. And this is because the most powerful things happen when the church surrenders its desire to convert people and convince them to join. It is when the church gives itself away in radical acts of service and compassion, expecting nothing in return, that the way of Jesus is most vividly put on display. To do this, the church must stop thinking about everybody primarily in categories of in or out, saved or not, believer or nonbeliever. Besides the fact that these terms are offensive to those who are the "un" and "non", they work against Jesus' teachings about how we are to treat each other. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor, and our neighbor can be anybody. We are all created in the image of God, and we are all sacred, valuable creations of God. Everybody matters. To treat people differently based on who believes what is to fail to respect the image of God in everyone. As the book of James says, "God shows no favoritism." So we don't either."
— Rob Bell

"The irony is that while God doesn’t need
us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don’t really want Him most of the
time.
"
— Francis Chan

"But to mean it when I say that I want my life to count for His glory is to drive a stake through the heart of self - a painful and determined dying to me that must be a part of every day I live."
— Louie Giglio