Jacob Sweeney

“Writing is not a literary act but spiritual. And pastoring is not managing a religious business but a spiritual quest.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant an Exploration in Vocational Holiness

“Rabbi Zusya, when he was an old man, said, “In the coming world, they will not ask me: ‘Why were you not Moses?’ They will ask me, ‘Why were you not Zusya?’ “4 The true vocation for every human being is, as Kierkegaard said, “the will to be oneself.”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Church, Updated and Expanded Edition: A Strategy for Discipleship That Actually Changes Lives

“In Augustine's view, "It is life outside the Christian community which fails to be truly public, authentically political. The opposition is not between public and private, church and world, but between political virtue and political vice. At the end of the day, it is the secular order that will be shown to be `atomistic' in its foundations."" A society that has no place for God will disintegrate into an amoral aggregate of competing, self-aggrandizing interests that are destructive of the commonweal. In the end it will be enveloped in darkness.”
― Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God

“Can we only speak when we are fully living what we are saying? If all our words had to cover all our actions, we would be doomed to permanent silence! Sometimes we are called to proclaim God’s love even when we are not yet fully able to live it. Does that mean we are hypocrites? Only when our own words no longer call us to conversion. Nobody completely lives up to his or her own ideals and visions. But by proclaiming our ideals and visions with great conviction and great humility, we may gradually grow into the truth we speak. As long as we know that our lives always speak louder than our words, we can trust that our words will remain humble. —HENRI NOUWEN”
― Scott Sauls, Jesus Outside the Lines: A Way Forward for Those Who Are Tired of Taking Sides