Shannan Martin > Quotes

“Afflicted with relentless humanity, we view the world with person-eyes, then project what we see onto the flawless creator of the universe, assuming he operates as we do. We trick ourselves into thinking God is just a holier version of us-- our brain, our worldview, none of the sinfulness. We forget that while we bear his image and harbor all his love, we can't comprehend the scope of eternal reality from our anthill vantage point. We say we trust God's will but feel so much better if we run ahead of him with our dustpan and broom, doing what we can to eliminate pain and minimize risk.”
― Shannan Martin, Falling Free: Rescued from the Life I Always Wanted

“Beginning to live as though there's no such thing as other people's children might be our most critical, significant contribution to the flourishing of our own world.”
― Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God's Goodness Around You

“As Christ-followers, we are called to be long-haul neighbors committed to authenticity and willing to take some risks. Our vocation is to invest deeply in the lives of those around us, devoted to one another, physically close to each other as we breathe the same air and walk the same blocks. Our purpose is not so mysterious after all. We get to love and be deeply loved right where we’re planted, by whomever happens to be near. We will inevitably encounter brokenness we cannot fix, solve, or understand, and we’ll feel as small, uncertain, and outpaced as we have ever felt. But we’ll find our very lives in this calling, to be among people as Jesus was, and it will change everything.”
― Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God's Goodness Around You

“Living small is not about having less, but being less-- less respected in the eyes of the world, less successful, less wealthy, less esteemed, less you. Less me. And more Jesus. Here, in this abundance of less, where more of us is stripped away, we'll uncover the person we were made to be, the one created in the image of a God who sank holy feet in to our human mess.”
― Shannan Martin, Falling Free: Rescued from the Life I Always Wanted

“When I was a kid growing up in the country, my dad taught me that the best way to carry something heavy is to carry something equally heavy in the other hand. From personal experience, this applies to buckets of water, overstuffed suitcases, concrete blocks, grocery bags filled with large cans of Spaghetti-Os, and dense emotions.
Decades later, I remain a distracted and forgetful student of balance. Gratitude and sorrow aren't, as I once believed, mutually exclusive. They pair quite well together, one in each hand. It can be easy to ebb into the dark seas of sadness, staring too long at grief and disunity. The trick is to keep filling the other bucket.”
― Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God's Goodness Around You

“We might have a zillion reasons to be jaded about our world, but that is not the kind of person I want to be. I want to be someone who clings to the grace and the gift and the good. Rather than spend my days scanning the digital horizon for a dopamine hit of false comfort, I want to keep my ear tuned to the groanings of my place. I want to stand ready, as Christ’s ambassador in my neighborhood, wearing grace, flesh, and skinny jeans. I want to belong, just as I am, and I want to get better at loving people for every good and puzzling thing they are.”
― Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God's Goodness Around You

“What on earth can we do to make this sad and beautiful world a little softer for everyone?”
― Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God's Goodness Around You

“You are my neighbor. I commit to seeing your humanity first then ask questions later. You are my neighbor and I am here to care for you in ways are tangible and loud.”
― Shannan Martin, Start with Hello:

“Under the gaze of Christ, Simon becomes Peter, and God’s church is built with men and women whose only hope is that we might be a bit less faithless tomorrow than we were today.”
― Shannan Martin, Falling Free: Rescued from the Life I Always Wanted

“He offers the opportunity to experience a richness we’d never know if we remained locked in the prison of our false security and maximized agendas. Here, in our everyday, he invites us in to the abundant life.”
― Shannan Martin, Falling Free: Rescued from the Life I Always Wanted

“We don't have to give oxygen to anything that harms us.”
― Shannan Martin, Start with Hello:

“Now, every day I am offered the gift of living in such a way that I get a taste of what it means to need him. Resting fully dependent in the palm of his hand, I realize the safety of staying small. I get to embrace the full shock value of the kingdom of God, and that is a real blessing. I get to be knocked around by the fallout of belonging to a life where I am wildly ill equipped to meet its demands. I am honored to experience an existence marked by dependence, where I submit to God's will for my life, even and especially when it defies my put-on, middle-class values.”
― Shannan Martin, Falling Free: Rescued from the Life I Always Wanted

“I was never meant to save a soul, and no one was purposed as a project. We were meant to be comrades, mutually passing around whatever we have to offer.”
― Shannan Martin, Falling Free: Rescued from the Life I Always Wanted

“Sometimes we get so hung up on doing something great, we forget the best thing is often the smallest.”
― Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God's Goodness Around You

“We are not meant to be everyone's teacher, conscience, priest, counselor”
― Shannan Martin, Start with Hello:

“[W]e discover we want the same things: to trust and be trusted, to be seen and believed, to be generous.”
― Shannan Martin, Start with Hello:

“The trickiest thing about writing about hospitality is that it requires using the word hospitality. I cringe. Heaven only knows why our desire to spend meaningful time with others is saddled with such a churchy, pearls-and-an-apron sounding word, conjuring up vivid Sunday school images of Mary and Martha. Even though I know Jesus preferred Mary's MO, I always felt like Martha was secretly the real winner of the contest. The fact that I still see it as a competition only further illustrates my need for this lesson in the first place.”
― Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God's Goodness Around You

“We can't claim to love what we don't know.”
― Shannan Martin, Start with Hello:

“You are my neighbor. I commit to seeing your humanity first then ask questions laer. You are my neighbor and I am here to care for you in ways are tangible and loud.”
― Shannan Martin, Start with Hello:

“We are one people, one family, one house and we must keep this house together. Celebrate our diversity. Preserve our diversity. All of us must be included.”
― Shannan Martin, Start with Hello:

“Curiosity lights our way to compassion.”
― Shannan Martin, Start with Hello:

“Affection is infectious. In the words of philosopher Simone Weil, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
― Shannan Martin, Start with Hello:

“Will we be an observer? Or a participant?”
― Shannan Martin, Start with Hello:

“Creating a rhythm of attentiveness awakens us to possibility and tunes our hearts to the key of wonder. The sky belongs to everyone—the longest-living art installation.”
― Shannan Martin, Start with Hello:

“Our dining room is living proof that eating together unites what the world tries to separate.”
― Shannan Martin, Start with Hello:

“This mission humbly asks that we devote ourselves to the overlooked spiritual practice of paying attention to wherever God has placed us. That's where we begin, and, though it's not terribly complicated, it will ask more of us than we ever imagined.”
― Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God's Goodness Around You

“On Who is Our Neighbor:

It only asks that we view our immediate world with fresh eyes to see how we might plant love with intention and grit.”
― Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God's Goodness Around You

“Eugene Peterson wrote of our need to listen and wait, attend and adore. We unite as we listen, yielding the floor to another. We pay attention, fully present, when our lips aren’t moving and our minds are alert. I am stunned by the richness of discussion this posture invites. I’m swept away by the freedom found in viewing people not as teammates or rivals but rather as friends and brothers.”
― Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God's Goodness Around You

“I've learned almost everything is some shade of beautiful if viewed from the right angle.”
― Shannan Martin, Start with Hello:

“IT's time for us to wear the humility of Jesus like secondhand coat, ready to hear from people further along this road. We've tot stop insisting on our own way and believing we now best.”
― Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God's Goodness Around You