more committed?

thanks to backyard missionary andrew hamilton for the link to this excellent article, It's No Longer About Commitment.

i especially agree that real, 'deep', discipleship must start with the those in leadership (not just pastors, but including elders, deacons and those who may not hold any 'office' but who are effectively leaders because of their maturity in the faith). As the author, stephen hinks, says:

"The starting place for sacrifice to re-enter our parlance and practice is with leadership. Leaders need to lead the way with deep personal change. Leaders need to model what sacrifice is, how choices are made, how costs are weighed and how fruits are enjoyed. When the language of sacrifice is recaptured by individual Christians we can put depth into our disciple-making."

bunch of scheming swindlers

i know this is lazy blogging, but i came across this excellent quote by soren kierkegaard at emergingsideways (picked up originally from mike at waving or drowing?) and wanted to pass it on:

The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.