Story Tree

“Having received all the kindness and tender-heartedness and forgiveness we need from God, we become free to give to others without risk, because our deepest needs have already been fully met in Christ.”
― Tullian Tchividjian, Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different

“Martha looked at her son. So this was the beginning of growing up. This was where the road they had been traveling together first parted.”
― Elizabeth Yates, Mountain Born

“Sadly, the Christian church has not proven to be immune to performancism. Far from it, in fact. In recent years, a handful of books have been published urging a more robust, radical, and sacrificial expression of the Christian faith. I even wrote one of them—Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different. I heartily amen the desire to take one’s faith seriously and demonstrate before the watching world a willingness to be more than just Sunday churchgoers. That Christians would want to engage the wider community with God’s sacrificial love—living for their neighbors instead of for themselves—is a wonderful thing and should be applauded. The unintended consequence of this push, however, is that if we’re not careful, we can give people the impression that Christianity is first and foremost about the sacrifice we make for Jesus rather than the sacrifice Jesus made for us; our performance for him rather than his performance for us; our obedience for him rather than his obedience for us. The hub of Christianity is not “do something for Jesus.” The hub of Christianity is “Jesus has done everything for you.” And my fear is that too many people, both inside and outside the church, have heard our pleas for intensified devotion and concluded that the focus of Christian faith is our love for God instead of God’s love for us. Don’t get me wrong—what we do is important. But it is infinitely less important than what Jesus has done for us. Furthermore, it often seems that the Good News of”
― Tullian Tchividjian, One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World

“Why aren’t midwives the heroines of society that they should be? Why do they have such a low profile? They ought to be lauded to the skies, by everyone.”
― Jennifer Worth, Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times