One Harlem preacher likens us to the pink plastic spoons at Baskin Robbins: we give the world a foretaste of what lies ahead, the vision of the Biblical prophets. In a world gone astray we should be activity demonstrating here and now God's will for the planet.

The world thirsts for grace. When grace descends, the world falls silent before it.

God formed an alliance based on the world as it is, full of flaws, whereas prayer calls God to account for the world as it should be.

As I look around on Sunday morning at the people populating the pews, I see the risk that God has assumed. For whatever reason, God now reveals himself in the world not through a pillar of smoke and fire, not even through the physical body of his Son in Galilee, but through the mongrel collection that comprises my local church and every other such gathering in God’s name. (p. 68, Church: Why Bother?)

We tend to think, 'Life should be fair because God is fair.' But God is not life. And if I confuse God with the physical reality of life- by expecting constant good health for example- then I set myself up for crashing disappointment.

Goodness cannot be imposed externally, from the top down; it must grow internally, from the bottom up.

I rejected the church for a time because I found so little grace there. I returned because I found grace nowhere else.