Lisa Johnson

“When we downshift Christian education from the paradigm of expertise to a paradigm of love, we do not dilute the importance of rigorous theological reflection. On the contrary, inverting the order of instruction makes serious inquiry all the more likely. We learn best what we love most.”
― Kenda Creasy Dean, Almost Christian : What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church

“Foolish faith comes from the security of knowing that we live in God’s embrace, and with that knowledge comes a peculiar kind of courage. Foolish faith flies in the face of the self-fulfilling norms of consumerism and addresses issues of identity and openness, not by avoiding the cross, as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism would have us do, but by clinging to it. As G. K. Chesterton pointed out, “A man who has faith must be prepared not only to be a martyr, but to be a fool.”18 Moralistic Therapeutic Deism prepares young people to be neither.”
― Kenda Creasy Dean, Almost Christian : What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church

“If we say we want to translate the gospel with young people, this is what we are saying: we are willing to put the very power of the gospel itself—the very power of the Word of God—into the hands of teenagers, people who do not view culture the way we view culture, who do not hear God the way we hear God, who will not worship the way we worship, who will not “do church” the way we want them to simply because they will be listening to Jesus and not to us.”
― Kenda Creasy Dean, Almost Christian : What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church

“God was on the move; God is on the move; and God will always be on the move. Those who walk with God and listen to God are also on the move. Reading the Bible so we can live it out today means being on the move—always. Anyone who stops and wants to turn a particular moment into a monument, as the disciples did when Jesus was transfigured before them, will soon be wondering where God has gone.”
― Scot McKnight, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible