"Shaping" quotes (random)

I'm reading The Shaping of Things To Come: Innovation and Mission For The 21st-Century Church by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch. It's okay. I didn't realize it was so old (2003), and I've heard most of the stories in it already. But I'm not complaining. I guess it's good that I'm reading a church leadership type book. Whatever. Anyway... here are some random quotes I've read so far that I want to remember:

• p. 47 "The missional-incarnational church... is a centered set. This means that rather than drawing a border to determine who belongs and who doesn't, a centered set is defined by its core values, and people are not seen as in or out, but as closer or further away from the center." Yep.
• p. 73 "In a world where many non-Christians assume God hates them (presumably because they gain the impression that God's people hate them) it is important to make one of the goals of incarnational church planting to help people connect with the God who is seeking them and desiring their friendship."
• p. 77 Robert Banks writes, "The church is described as belonging not to the people by whom it is constituted... nor to the district to which they belong... but rather to the one who has brought it into existence (that is, God) or the one through whom this has taken place (that is, Christ)."
• ***p. 77ff - Commitments for the church: COMMUNION (in relationship with Christ) - God's Word; worship. COMMUNITY (in relationship with One Another) - learning; fellowship/friendship. COMMISSION (in relationship with the World) - serving/giving; Gospel telling/sharing. ***
• p. 104 "In the second century, Diognetus wrote of the fledgling Christian Community in the following way: They dwell in their country, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country and every country of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all others; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things and yet abound in all; they are dishonored and yet in their very dishonor are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honor; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred."
• p. 125 "It reminds one of the old rabbinical saying that one day we will all stand before God and he will judge us for all the possible pleasures he gave us to enjoy, but we failed to enjoy."
• p. 126 "The Hebrew word 'Torah' has traditionally been interpreted as "law," that is, a set of rules or legal codes. This is a somewhat misleading interpretation as it implies the rigid approach to life that distorts the inner intention of the idea of 'Torah.' A truer translation is that of "instruction" or simply "teaching." A better way of lookng at it is to see the Torah as an orientation course in the ways of God... When reading the Pentateuch, one is immediately struck by the radical non-linear logic associated with it. One verse deals with the Israelite's approach to God in the temple. The very next verse deals with what one does when one's donkey falls into a pit. The next might well deal with the mildew in the kitchen, the next with the female menstrual cycle. It seems to be radically discontinuous and generally lacks the sequential reason that we look for in a text. What is going on here? How can we comprehend this meaning?... We suggest that there is indeed a rather profound logic going on in the Torah, a logic that attempts to relate ALL ASPECTS of life to God. Therefore, everything - one's work, one's domestic life, one's health, one's worship - has the same significance to God. He is concerned with every aspect of the believer's life..."
  
• p. 144 "Whoever can no longer desire the impossible will be able to achieve nothing more than the all-t00-probable" (Martin Buber, On Judaism, p.35).
• p. 159 "There's a riddle in the Talmud that goes like this, 'If God intended man to live on bread, why didn't he create a bread tree?' And the answer is that, in fact, God could have created a tree that produced crusty loaves of bread, but he prefers to offer us a grain and invite us to buy a field and plant the seed. He prefers that we till the soil while he sends the rain. He prefers that we harvest the crop while he sends the sunshine. He prefers that we grind the grain and knead it and bake it while he gives us air in our lungs and strength in our arms. Why? Because he would rather we become partners with him in creation."