Strong and Weak Quotes

“Brew coffee or tea, sit with a friend and ask them questions—questions just one step riskier than the last time you talked. As you listen, observe the flickers of sadness or hope that cross their face. Try to imagine what it must be like to live their story, suffer their losses, dream their dreams. Pray with them and dare to put into words their heart’s desires, and dare to ask God to grant them.”
― Andy Crouch, Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing

“If you want one last picture of authority and vulnerability together, laughter will do the trick. To laugh, to really laugh out loud, is to be vulnerable, taken beyond ourselves, overcome by surprise and gratitude. And to really laugh may be the last, best kind of authority—the capacity to see the meaning of the whole story and discover that our final act, our only enduring responsibility in that story, is simply celebration, delight and worship.”
― Andy Crouch, Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing

“Leadership begins the moment you are more concerned about others’ flourishing than you are about your own.”
― Andy Crouch, Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing

“One night, as I tucked my daughter into her bed, safe beneath her down comforter and properly lavished with kisses and hugs, and prayed for her safety, I unexpectedly sensed the unmistakable voice of Another addressing me in return.

“I hear your prayers,” this voice seemed to say kindly but sternly. “But I also hear the prayers every night of parents who can offer their children no protection.”
― Andy Crouch, Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing

“What makes action meaningful? Above all, meaningful action participates in a story. It has a past and a future. Meaningful action does not just come from nowhere, and it does not just vanish in an instant—it takes place in the midst of a story that matters.”
― Andy Crouch, Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing

“To disengage from the profound needs of those caught in suffering is to reject the call to bear the image of God.”
― Andy Crouch, Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing

“To live fully, in these transitory lives on this fragile earth, in such a way that we somehow participate in the glory of God—that would be flourishing. And that is what we are meant to do.”
― Andy Crouch, Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing

“Most of us would in fact find ourselves bored to tears after a few weeks of perpetual vacation—our thirst for flourishing is too strong to completely abandon the call to authority and vulnerability. But the technological culture has another, stronger trick up its sleeve—not total disengagement, but powerful and rewarding simulations of engagement. The real temptation for most of us is not complete apathy but activities that simulate meaningful action and meaningful risk without actually asking much of us or transforming much in us.”
― Andy Crouch, Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing

“The real test of every human community is how it cares for the most vulnerable...”
― Andy Crouch, Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing

“When authority and vulnerability are combined, you find true flourishing. Not just the flourishing of the gifted or affluent, but the needy and limited as well… In the end, this is what love longs to be: capable of meaningful action in the life of the beloved, so committed to the beloved that everything meaningful is at risk.”
― Andy Crouch, Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing

“In the end, this is what love longs to be: capable of meaningful action in the life of the beloved, so committed to the beloved that everything meaningful is at risk. If we want flourishing, this is what we will have to learn.”
― Andy Crouch, Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing

“If this simulated flourishing were restricted to the world of leisure—cruises and games—at least we would know that it was not the real world. But the reward structure of video games—the simulated authority and vulnerability of virtual reality—is increasingly colonizing our interactions with the most serious matters of the real world as well. Like technologically mediated entertainment, the technology of social media is becoming more “gamified” by the year as developers learn how to tap into the deep human hunger for simulations of authority and vulnerability. In social media, you can engage in nearly friction-free experiences of activism, expressing enthusiasm, solidarity or outrage (all powerful sensations of authority) for your chosen cause with the click of a few buttons.”
― Andy Crouch, Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing