quote from Brian McLaren

The following excerpts are from the book "Finding Our Way Again"  by Brian McLaren.  Brian spent 3 days with us here at Fairlawn West in 2004.   First, they may go to church without understanding the potential and purposes of the communal practices they encounter there.  As a result, they may engage in spiritual malpractice instead of spiritual practice, leading to spiritual malformation rather than spiritual formation.  That's why, according to the apostle Paul, gathering in the wrong way can be worse than not gathering at all: "Now in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse" (1 Corinthians 11:17 NRSV).  The apostle James erupted in a full-fledged rant along similar lines, suggesting that the common practice of "favoritism" (or cliquishness, a failure to properly practice the presence of people) made him wonder whether the so-called Christians to whom he wrote really got the message of Jesus at all (James 2:1-7)   =================   So our planetary ecology is in trouble.  But isn't that outer disharmony and imbalance integrally related to the disharmony and imbalance in our inner ecology?  If we are controlled by greed or fear or hate or lust internally, won't that inner ecology be expressed in the kind of world we have?  If God wants the outer ecology healed, won't God necessarily want our inner ecology restored to balance and health as well?  So, when we think of spiritual practices, shouldn't we think of practice that form and transform both the outer and inner ecologies of soul and world?   We could also say it like this: Jesus called disciples so he could send them out as apostles.  They were called together to learn so they could be sent out to teach and serve.  When a master musician invites promising young musicians to be her students, her ultimate goal is for them not to be students only, but also to become master musicians with students of their own, so the way, the tradition, of music goes on generation after generation with continuity and creativity—preserving the past but never being restricted to replaying it.  Jesus calls disciples for the purpose of forming them into apostles, whom he will send out to form disciples and apostles, and so on, across all social boundaries and generations, so the "good news revolution" he launched in his little corner of the world will spread to all creation.