We Make the Road by Walking Quotes

“But before Christianity was a rich and powerful religion, before it was associated with buildings, budgets, crusades, colonialism, or televangelism, it began as a revolutionary nonviolent movement promoting a new kind of aliveness on the margins of society.”
― Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation

“Whatever ember of love for goodness flickers within us, however feeble or small… that’s what the Spirit works with, until that spark glows warmer and brighter. From the tiniest beginning, our whole lives—our whole hearts, minds, souls, and strength—can be set aflame with love for God.”
― Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation

“If a spiritual community only points back to where it has been or if it only digs in its heels where it is now, it is a dead end or a parking lot, not a way.”
― Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation

“MATTHEW, MARK, AND LUKE tell the story of Jesus in ways similar to one another (which is why they’re often called the synoptic gospels—with a similar optic, or viewpoint). Many details differ (and the differences are quite fascinating), but it’s clear the three compositions share common sources. The Fourth Gospel tells the story quite differently. These differences might disturb people who don’t understand that storytelling in the ancient world was driven less by a duty to convey true details accurately and more by a desire to proclaim true meaning powerfully. The ancient editors who put the New Testament together let the differences stand as they were, so each story can convey its intended meanings in its own unique ways.”
― Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation

“The romance of Creator and creation is far more wonderful and profound than anyone can ever capture in words.”
― Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation

“He creates a new kind of hero: not warriors, corporate executives, or politicians, but brave and determined activists for preemptive peace, willing to suffer with Him in the prophetic tradition of justice.”
― Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation

“God is not the tribal deity of one group of “chosen” people. God is not for us and against all others. God is for us and for them, too. God loves everyone everywhere, no exceptions.”
― Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation

“So the Spirit is looking for conspirators who are interested in plotting goodness in their communities. “What would our community look like if God’s dreams for it were coming true?” we ask.”
― Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation

“So next time you’re grouchy, angry, anxious, and uptight, here is some wisdom to help you come back from being “out of your mind” to being “in your right mind” again. Try telling yourself, My own anxiety is more dangerous to me than whatever I am anxious about. My own habit of condemning is more dangerous to me than what I condemn in others. My misery is unnecessary because I am truly, truly, truly loved. From that wisdom, unworried, unhurried, unpressured aliveness will flow again.”
― Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation

“As Jesus continued, it became clear he was proposing a third way that neither the compliant nor the noncompliant had ever considered before. Aliveness won’t come through unthinking conformity to tradition, he tells them. And it won’t come from defying tradition, either. It will come only if we discern and fulfill the highest intent of tradition—even if doing so means breaking with the details of tradition in the process.”
― Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation

“listen humbly to all the different voices arising in the biblical library. Wisdom emerges from the conversation among these voices, voices we could arrange in five broad categories. First, there are the voices of the priests who emphasize keeping the law, maintaining order, offering sacrifices, and faithfully maintaining traditions and taboos. Then there are the voices of the prophets, often in tension with the priests, who emphasize social justice, care for the poor, and the condition of the heart. Next are the poets who express the full range of human emotion and opinion—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Then come the sages who, in proverb, essay, and creative fiction, record their theories, observations, questions, and doubts. And linking them together are storytellers, each with varying agendas, who try to tell the stories of the people who look back to Abraham as their father, Moses as their liberator, David as their greatest king, and God as their Creator and faithful companion.”
― Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation