Imagining Mission with John V. Taylor
'If we do not use the divine imagination given to us, we will be embarrassed by a world capable of far more imagination that the Church itself. What we need is not more technique but more imagination, 'to see the unseen' in what is familiar and offer it to men [sic] as a parable, in all its liability to be missed or understood'. We need to cultivate our imaginations along these lines so that we can intrigue and surprise when we present the Gospel and give people the opportunity to discover for themselves what the cost of discipleship means and what gifts Jesus brings.' p. 53

'We need not be afraid of the local; instead we need to allow the locals to mine their own cultures for its riches, seams and veins that can begin to communicate the Gospel afresh. The Word is basic everywhere, but 'the thought forms, the metaphors, the logic in which it is communicated, these differ from culture to culture and from age to age.' (CMS Newsletter 299, December 1966) Even the story of salvation may have to be told differently, as each of the four gospels demonstrates. Worship, theology, ethics, ministry - each of these must be universal but must be rooted in the local context if they are to be authentic and makes sense in a particular context.' p. 54

'We need a forward-looking faith that has an eye to the future. Sometimes we can revert back to old ways, believing this to be local or indigenous when it is just nostalgia and wistful longing for the past. Taylor believes that a Christian perspective is to experience the present 'flowing towards them, new, out of the future.' Jesus' resurrection broke into time and rearranged time for everyone so that we do not have to be beholden to the tyranny of past events. This is both hopeful and challenging - to be able to discern the work of the Spirit in the coming of the new. Mission and renewal will 'stir' the Church into continual discontent with even the best of its traditional forms. It is sent into a world of change and progression, and it must get on with it. But that means different things in different places.' p. 57

2. 'retrain ourselves to communicate in signs and symbols...' p. 58 'Jesus ... was the supreme giver of signs and always ready to be a sign himself. The washing of his disciples' feet, the sharing of bread and wine, the wedding at Cana, his healing miracles are all important signs and symbols of his own mission. We need to recapture this ability to be signs of the kindgom of God in ways that commmunicate and pique interest, rather than spell out the meaning in a literal, dreary or dogmatic way.' p. 59

'Mission also involves proclamation of the Gospel, witness and service, 'what we tell, what we are and what we do.' If any of these three strands is missing, then our mission could become distrorted or truncated.' Mission is about sharing the Gospel, always aware of the context and of possibilities for newness and change. It is about listening to and learning from those contexts so that we too are changed and transformed as we receive the gifts of the other. It is about living and presenting the Gospel imaginatively so that people can be intrigued and explore for themselves, with the inspiration of the Spirit, what it looks like to be followers of Jesus in their context.'..... 'Imagine mission as trying to make the world a better place. Imagine if mission were as simple - and as complex - as that. Essentially mission is the redemption and healing of all things under Christ. It is a yearning to see al things renewed - our relationships, our societies, our environment, our world and our cosmos. 'Mission means joining him, as he joins the Father in the unfinished task of creation, redemption and perfection of the whole universe.' p. 65 (CMS newletter no. 382, june 1974

Brother Lawrence Practicing the Presence of God
'It wa sobserved that in the greatest hurry of business in the kitchen, he still preserved his recollection and heavenly-mindedness. He was never hasty nor loitering, but did each thing in its season with an even, uninterrupted composure and tranquility of spitiy. 'The time of business,' said he, 'does not, for me, differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for differnt things, I possess God in as great tranquility a sif I were upon my knees at the Blessed Sacrament.' p. 25

'He complains much of our blindness and cries often that we are to be pitied who content ourselves with so little. 'God.' he says, 'has infinate treasure to bestow, and we take up only a little conscious devotion, which passes in a moment. Blind as we are, we hinder God and stop the current of his graces. But when he finds a soul penetrated with a lively faith, he pours into it his graces and favours plentifully. There they flow like a torrent which, after being forcibly stopped against its ordinary course, when it has found a passage, it spreads itself with impetuosity and abundance.'
Yes, we often stop this torrent by the little value we set upon it. But let us stop it no more; let us enter into ourselves and break down the bank which hinders it. let us make way for grace; let us redeem the lost time, for perhaps we have but little left.' p. 43

"We are here to be God's presence to you," is what a bishop said to a grieving family at a funeral recently. When people are bent over with the weight of sufferingm they need from us only our presence. If we give them that, truly give them that, we become for them the presence of God in a most tangible way. That is hospitality.' p. 196 (Radical Hospitality: Benedict's Way of Love, by Daniel Homan and Lonni Collins Pratt.)