Eric Richter

“No one has yet believed in God and the kingdom of God, no one has yet heard about the realm of the resurrected, and not been homesick from that hour, waiting and looking forward joyfully to being released from bodily existence. Whether we are young or old makes no difference. What are twenty or thirty or fifty years in the sight of God? And which of us knows how near he or she may already be to the goal? That life only really begins when it ends here on earth, that all that is here is only the prologue before the curtain goes up—that is for young and old alike to think about. Why are we so afraid when we think about death? . . . Death is only dreadful for those who live in dread and fear of it. Death is not wild and terrible, if only we can be still and hold fast to God’s Word. Death is not bitter, if we have not become bitter ourselves. Death is grace, the greatest gift of grace that God gives to people who believe in him. Death is mild, death is sweet and gentle; it beckons to us with heavenly power, if only we realize that it is the gateway to our homeland, the tabernacle of joy, the everlasting kingdom of peace. How do we know that dying is so dreadful? Who knows whether, in our human fear and anguish we are only shivering and shuddering at the most glorious, heavenly, blessed event in the world? Death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvelous, that we can transform death.”
― Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“A man's at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he dont want to. Rightly so. Best not to look in there. It aint the heart of a creature that is bound in the way that God has set for it. You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West

“Although small groups have been utilized as a church renewal scheme, they have rarely been legitimized as a full expression of the church. They have been conceived as an adjunct for the personal growth of the participants. They have been considered an “extra” in church programming, and they have served this role well. Meanwhile the “real” church gathers in the sanctuary at eleven each Sunday. It’s there, with “everybody” (except the sick, etc.) present, that the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are celebrated. We have been so oriented toward the gathered congregation that the small group is relegated to serving as a means to a larger end—that is, to stimulate active participation in the corporate congregation.[3] When we look at small groups as secondary helper units for bolstering our larger gatherings we have gone off the rails. The better view is to see our corporate gatherings—church services—as a celebratory exclamation point of lives lived as salt and light the previous week.”
― Lance Ford, The Missional Quest: Becoming a Church of the Long Run

“You will never have a missional church without missional people who engage the lives of others where they live, where they work and where they play. In other words, every church member must see him- or herself as a missionary living out their missional calling in their neighborhood, through their vocation and in social settings (third places) within the local community.”
― Lance Ford, The Missional Quest: Becoming a Church of the Long Run