Words That Are Rockin' My World Today

A coworker dropped a set of books by my office today with the comment, "If you can use these, find a place for them, otherwise, trash them!"  So, an hour or so later when my computer crashed and I had to wait for it to reboot, I began reading the introduction.  The book is Establishing a Church-based Welfare-to-Work Mentoring Ministry: A Practical 'How To' Manual by Dr. Amy L. Sherman.  In just the first four pages, here is some of the treasure I've found ...

"God is passionate for the poor and commands His disciples to imitate that passion and be His hands and feet of mercy to the needy."

"We become a visible, tangible demonstration of the reality and power of God when we imitate the Lrod Jesus' compassion for the poor, weak, and broken."

"...the spiritual health of our congregations will be enriched through our engagement with needy families."

"...when we allow ourselves to be touched with the brokenness and pain experienced by our needy neighbors, then an oh-so-needed 'holy discontent' can begin to grow within us.

"It is a wonderful gift to be reminded of our inadequacy, for God has told us that it is when we are weak that Christ's strength is perfected in us."

"There is an immediacy and an urgency about poor people's relationship to God that we can learn much from."

On the Bible as a "recipe for life":  "The world can't smell a recipe; they smell fresh baked bread ... When the world sees us ministering to hurting people the way Jesus Christ did, then it smells the Bread of Life."

Mercy is a voluntary sorrow that joins itself to the suffering of another ~ Gregory of Nyssa