summer reading

It's summer. Every summer I tend to put away thoughts of going through new books and read through my old favourites. This is mainly because I am usually running around biking or hiking or doing other random adventures that don't leave a lot of time to fully delve into a new story. Reading the same old fav's lets me leave them sitting on the shelf for a few weeks before having time to pick them up again and still know exactly what is going on. 

This summer I decided to read through them a bit differently. As I read through instead of re-underlining or highlighting again, I kept a notepad beside me and I wrote down any thoughts that really stuck out to me. These thoughts are what made these books become my favourites that I read through at least once a year.

I just finished reading The Irresistable Revolution by Shane Claiborn again for the who-knows-how-many time. This book has changed my worldview so many times and has helped shape who I am. If I could copy almost the entire book down as my favourite thoughts I would but you might as well just go out and buy the book to read yourself (or just ask me and I could lend you my copy.) Although this list of quotes from this book are not exclusively the only parts of the book I recommend you to read, here is a selection of why I read through this book so often and how it has impacted my life:

• "Don't let the world steal your soul. Being a Christian is about choosing Jesus and deciding to do something incredibly daring with your life."
• "Most good things have been said far too many times and just need to be lived." -p.32
• "If we had enough fait to depend on God like the lilies and teh sparrows do, we would see miracles. For is it not a miracle that the birds find enough worms each day?" -p.49
• "Referring to the church as a building is like referring to people as two-by-fours." - Don Everts
• "Stop complaining about the church you see, and set your heart on becoming the church you dream of."
• "It looked like sometime back we had stopped living Christianity and just started studying it." p.71
• "We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minutes we understand we are obligated to act accordingly." - Soren Kierkgaard

• "Rather than waiting around for God's special plan for your life, you should just go find where God is at work and join in." -p.93
• "Even if there were no heaven and there was no hell, would you still follow Jesus" - Tony Campolo -p.117
• "Christendom seems very unprepared for people who take the gospel seriously." -p. 130
• "We've just fallen in love with God and our neighbours, and that is transforming our lives." -p.133
• "When the first human was made, things were not good until there were two, helping one another." -p.134
• "Following Jesus is simple, but now easy. Love until it hurts, and then love more." - Mother Teresa
• "Love is a harsh and dreadful thing to ask of us, but it is the only answer." - Dorothy Day
• "This love is not sentimental but heartwrenching, the most difficult and the most beautiful thing in the world." -p.136 

• "What the world really needs is not more churches but a Church." -p.146
• "Belief is only the beginning. What really matter is how we live, how what we believe gets flushed out." -p.147-148
• "Simplicity is meaningful only inasmuch as it is grounded in love, authentic relationships, and interdependence." -p.163
• "True generosity is not measured by how much we give away but by how much we have left." -p.164
• "The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them away." -p.167
• "The Scriptures say that we should not fear those things which can destroy the body, but we are to fear that which can destroy the soul (Mt. 10:28) While the ghettos may have their share of violence and crime, the suburbs are the home of the more subtel demonic forces - numbness, complacency, comfort - and it is these that can eat away at our souls." -p.227
• "We Christians are not called to safety, but we are promised that God will be with us when we are in danger." -p.227
• "It's not hell that makes me shudder but God, because I have no idea what in the world God's going to dare me to do next." -p.229
• "The greatest cause of atheism is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips then walk out the door and deny Him with their lifestyle." - Brennan Manning -p.270

I hope you find these thoughts so provoking that you read this book as well and let it become one of your top choices. I believe if we had more people who lived the life this book dares to live our world would be so amazingly passionate. If you have any questions or thoughts about these points, please let me know. I would love to talk about it :)