We need to stop building our churches around categories and start building them around people. Rachel Held Evans More Quotes by Rachel Held Evans More Quotes From Rachel Held Evans Church attendance may be dipping, but God can survive the Internet age. After all, He knows a thing or two about resurrection. Rachel Held Evans churchagetwo In an age of information overload ... the last thing any of us needs is more information about God. We need the practice of incarnation, by which God saves the lives of those whose intellectual assent has turned them dry as dust, who have run frighteningly low on the Bread of Life, who are dying to know more God in their bodies. Not more about God. More God. Rachel Held Evans bread-of-lifepracticerunning If same-sex relationships are really sinful, then why do they so often produce good fruit-loving families, open homes, self-sacrifice, commitment, faithfulness, joy? And if conservative Christians are really right in their response to same-sex relationships, then why does that response often produce bad fruit-secrets, shame, depression, loneliness, broken families, and fear? Rachel Held Evans lonelinesschristiansex Perhaps we could push beyond these legalistic gender roles if we spent less time worrying about “acting like men” and “acting like women,” and more time acting like Jesus. Rachel Held Evans worrymenjesus As a Christian, my highest calling is not motherhood; my highest calling is to follow Christ. Rachel Held Evans motherhoodcallingchristian You can't get too far into the Gospels without noticing that Jesus made a pretty lousy apologist. Rachel Held Evans noticingmadejesus Imagine if every church became a place where everyone is safe, but no one is comfortable. Image if every church became a place where we told one another the truth. We might just create sanctuary. Rachel Held Evans sanctuarychurchsafe But if the world is watching, we might as well tell the truth. And the truth is, the church doesn't offer a cure. It doesn't offer a quick fix. The church offers death and resurrection. The church offers the messy, inconvenient, gut-wrenching, never-ending work of healing and reconciliation. Rachel Held Evans churchhealingmight Millennials aren't looking for a hipper Christianity. We're looking for a truer Christianity, a more authentic Christianity. Like every generation before ours and every generation after, we're looking for Jesus-the same Jesus who can be found in the strange places he's always been found: in bread, in wine, in baptism, in the Word, in suffering, in community, and among the least of these. Rachel Held Evans strange-placeswinejesus What a comfort to know that God is a poet. Rachel Held Evans poetcomfortknows When we refer to 'the biblical approach to economics' or the biblical response to politics' or 'biblical womanhood,' we're using the Bible as a weapon disguised as an adjective. Rachel Held Evans adjectivesbiblicalweapons I have come to regard with some suspicion those who claim that the Bible never troubles them. I can only assume this means they haven’t actually read it. Rachel Held Evans assumingtroublemean Like all who search for truth out of fear, I desperately wanted someone else to tell me exactly what to do. Rachel Held Evans wanted-someonesearch-for-truthwanted I can't be a Christian on my own. I need a community. I need the church. Rachel Held Evans communitychurchchristian I'm a Christian because Christianity names and addresses sin. It acknowledges the reality that the evil we observe in the world is also present within ourselves. It tells the truth about the human condition - that we're not okay. Rachel Held Evans christiannamesreality The Holy Trinity doesn't need our permission to carry on in their endlessly resourceful work of making all things new. That we are invited to catch even a glimpse of the splendor is grace. All of it, every breath and every second is grace. Rachel Held Evans splendorglimpsegrace I don't know why Christians keep fighting over which is better-singleness or marriage-when it seems rather obvious, both from Scripture and from Church history, that both can glorify God. Rachel Held Evans fightingchurchchristian Walking with someone through grief, or through the process of reconciliation, requires patience, presence, and a willingness to wander, to take the scenic route. But the modern-day church doesn't like to wander or wait. The modern-day church likes results. Convinced the gospel is a product we've got to sell to an increasingly shrinking market, we like our people to function as walking advertisements: happy, put-together, finished - proof that this Jesus stuff WORKS! Rachel Held Evans griefpeoplejesus Isaiah 55 provides an entirely different framework for thinking about God's justice, because it suggests that we have it backward - the mystery lies not in God's unfathomable wrath but in his unfathomable mercy. God's ways are higher than our ways because his capacity to love is infinitely greater than our own. Despite all that we do to alienate ourselves from God, all that we do to insult and disobey, God abundantly pardons again and again. Rachel Held Evans love-islyingthinking What each of us longs for the most is to be both fully known and fully loved. Miraculously, God feels the same way about us. God, too, wants to be fully known and fully loved. God wants this so much that He has promised to knock down every obstacle in the way, enduring even His own death, to be with us, to consummate this love. Rachel Held Evans obstacleswantway
