The evangelical movement has become just a bit victimized by a success-oriented culture, wanting the church - like the corporation - to be successful.
Interpretation
The quote critiques how evangelical movements may mirror corporate success ideals, prioritizing success over genuine faith.
Henri Nouwen's quote reflects on the challenges faced by the evangelical movement in the contemporary world, where success is often measured by worldly standards similar to those in corporate culture. This transformation can lead to a superficial understanding of faith that values metrics of success rather than the depth of spiritual experience and community engagement.
In practice
In a church sermon discussing the importance of genuine faith over worldly success.
The Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. God loves us, not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love.
The immense joy in welcoming back the lost son hides in the immense sorrow that has gone before....our brokenness may appear beautiful, but our brokenness has no other beauty but the beauty that comes from the compassion that surrounds it.
Suffering invites us to place our hurts in larger hands. In Christ we see God suffering β for us. And calling us to share in Godβs suffering love for a hurting world. The small and even overpowering pains of our lives are intimately connected with the greater pains of Christ. Our daily sorrows are anchored in a greater sorrow and therefore a larger hope.
To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, welcome, to accept.
Waiting is a dry desert between where we are and where we want to be. (Finding My Way Home)
Becoming the beloved is pulling the truth revealed to me from above down into the ordinariness of what I am, in fact, thinking of, talking about and doing from hour to hour.
There's an opposite to dΓ©jΓ vu. They call it jamais vu. It's when you meet the same people or visit places, again and again, but each time is the first. Everybody is always a stranger. Nothing is ever familiar.
Part of the reason people abroad resent the United States is something Americans can do very little about: envy. The richest, most powerful country in the world attracts the jealousy of others in much the same way that the richest, most powerful man in a small town attracts the jealousy of others.
Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world.
I seem to myself, as in a dream, Am accidental guest in this dreadful body.
On television I feel like a man playing piano in a brothel; every now and again he solaces himself by playing 'Abide with Me' in the hope of edifying both the clients and the inmates
There's always a sense that people will do things quite differently if they think they have privacy.
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