I Would Be a College Pastor

From Dan Kimball’s facebook post this week:

“If I wasn’t in the lead role of the whole church, I would want to be the college pastor. So much happens in that time of life and questions and challenges and idealism and thinking. I am very thrilled to be speaking to our college ministry this evening. I would also volunteer in the youth ministry too if I wasn’t in the broader role I am currently. One day perhaps…. but thankful for all the youth and college ministry leaders in our churches across the world.” 

Catch-22

A friend in my community group let me read his favorite book, which happened to be Catch-22. Never read this in school for some reason, but it is fantastic…an absolute tearing apart of the absurdities of war, but also of bureaucratic life and America in general. My favorite quote:

“The chaplain had sinned, and it was good. Common sense told him that telling lies and defecting from duty were sins. On the other hand, everyone knew that sin was evil and that no good could come from evil. But he did feel good; he felt positively marvelous. Consequently, it followed logically that telling lies and defecting from duty could not be sins. The chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization, and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.”

Consumer Quotes

Given that Advent Conspiracy is upon us, here are a couple of quotes to ponder:

“The commercialization of [Christmas] does not exemplify the secularization of society as is commonly assumed. Rather than a secular corruption of a Christian feast, the consumer activity around Christmas functions as the high holy day of a completely different religion, one centered on a consumer culture.” – Dell de Chant

And:

“The people who are rebelling meaningfully don’t buy a lot of stuff.” – David Foster Wallace

Wisdom

Yesterday some from the Globalscope crew posted their favorite quotes from our time with Bob Randolph during Celebration. I thought I’d share them here:

“I’ve learned listen more than talk.”

“Can you live with not being successful in others eyes?”

“You have to live with the ambiguity of not having quick answers to a lot of hard questions.”

“Are you in this for the long haul?”

“You will not be thanked.”

“My God has grown a lot.”

“Wisdom is being able to draw conclusions.”

“Learn to talk well about the things that matter most to you, have them rejected, and stay in the conversation.”

“In our faith, small things often matter a great deal.”

“Pay attention in times of transition.’

“Focus on questions of being and meaning.”

And my favorite: “Has Mark Zuckerburg had more influence on your vocation more than Jesus.”

Wendell Berry on the University

Thanks to Tim Hawkins for passing this along:

“The university thought of itself as a place of freedom for thought and study and experimentation, and maybe it was, in a way. But it was an island too, a floating or a flying island. It was preparing people from the world of the past for the world of the future, and what was missing was the world of the present, where every body was living its small, short, surprising, miserable, wonderful, blessed, damaged, only life.” From Jaber Crow