I am a Christian, not because someone explained the nuts and bolts of Christianity, but because there were people willing to be nuts and bolts.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the importance of genuine actions over theoretical understanding in faith.
Rich Mullins suggests that true belief in Christianity is not solely based on comprehension of its doctrines, but rather on the demonstration of faith through the actions of its followers. The 'nuts and bolts' represent the foundational elements of Christianity, with individuals embodying these principles through their lives, thus inspiring others to embrace faith. It's a call to recognize the impact of lived experiences in shaping belief.
In practice
In a sermon about community service, you might quote Rich Mullins to emphasize the importance of living out your faith.
Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in your beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken.
I think I would rather live on the verge of falling and let my security be in the all-sufficiency of the grace of God than to live in some pietistic illusion of moral excellence. Not that I don't want to be morally excellent but my faith isn't in the idea that I'm more moral than anybody else. My faith is in the idea that God and His love are greater than whatever sins any of us commit.
So go out and live real good and I promise you'll get beat up real bad. But, in a little while after you're dead, you'll be rotted away anyway. It's not gonna matter if you have a few scars. It will matter if you didn't live.
Forged in the fires of human passion, choking on the fumes of human rage, with these out hells and our heavens, so few inches apart, we must be awfully small, and not as strong as we think we are.
The Catholic Church is not dead, it is not even tired!
I cannot tell you what joy it gave me to bring the first soul to the Lord Jesus Christ. I have tasted almost all the pleasures that this world can give. I do not suppose there is one that I have not experienced, but I can tell you that those pleasures were as nothing compared to the joy that the saving of that one soul gave me.
What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men, men of prayer.
The Bible in the pulpit must never supersede the Bible at home.
Missions is God finding those whose hearts are right with Him and placing them where they can make a difference for His kingdom
Oh, Brethren, it is sickening work to think of your cushioned seats, your chants, your anthems, your choirs, your organs, your gowns, and your bands, and I know not what besides, all made to be instruments of religious luxury, if not of pious dissipation, while ye need far more to be stirred up and incited to holy ardor for the propagation of the truth as it is in Jesus.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.