1
Being a “friend of sinners” is an accusation that Christians should wear as a badge of honor, for nothing could honor Jesus more, and nothing is more revealing of who God actually is.Ronnie McBrayer
2
By telling stories, Jesus isn’t somehow putting sugar in a spoon to make the medicine go down a bit easier. These stories are the medicine. These stories are an extension and explanation of Jesus’ revolutionary ministry. These stories show us that things are not as they appear. Our tidy, well-packaged ideas about spirituality, faith, and reality shatter when confronted by Christ and the God he represents.Ronnie McBrayer
3
Jesus is not a white, middle-class Republican. Jesus is not a Democrat, a Libertarian, a Marxist, or a Socialist. Jesus is not a Baptist, a Catholic, a Lutheran, or a Buddhist. Jesus isn’t even a Christian. Jesus Christ is Lord.Ronnie McBrayer
4
Jesus did not come to start a religion. He came to blow religion off the map. Jesus did not come to tinker with our ideas about God. He came to show us who God really is. Jesus did not come to build cathedrals or pulpits. He came to start a revolution. Jesus came to initiate a way of life, a new way to live, that knocks the props from beneath everything else we have ever known.Ronnie McBrayer
5
To not follow Jesus is to be unmoved. To be unmoved is to risk the greatest danger of all: To misunderstand and misrepresent God.Ronnie McBrayer
6
Jesus and institutional religion are on a collision course, and those who go with Jesus will find more adventure, freedom, and religion-bursting grace than they can stand, all the things that make traveling worth the effort. But they will also find clash and conflict. The path of Jesus is not well tolerated by the establishment.Ronnie McBrayer
7
We in the revivalist tradition have viewed grace only in terms of privatized, individualized spirituality. Give people enough Jesus to save their souls, move them to an emotional decision, help them get their hearts right and acquire a more responsible morality, and that will be enough. But that is not enough. It is not even the beginning of enough. God was concerned about those living in dire suffering long before Bono, Angelina Jolie, or George Clooney turned into social activists.Ronnie McBrayer
8
When “doctrinal integrity” (a term usually defined by those using it) trumps kindness and grace, faith has wandered out of bounds. Anything claiming to be truth that does not lead to compassion for our neighbors cannot rightfully be called the truth.Ronnie McBrayer
9
In serving others, the church will save itself from becoming nothing more than a spiritualized 501c3 not-for-profit, self-centered corporation, organized for the benefit of donor tax exemption. Serving others will remind us of our identity and call us out from this self-absorbed, selfish world to be the people of God on a journey following his Son, Jesus.Ronnie McBrayer
10
To take Christ into our well-ordered, well-kept lives is in many ways to ask for trouble, for he will not leave well enough alone.Ronnie McBrayer