No great things..

No great things.. interesting title I know but it is the phrase that has been in my heart for the past week or so. I have just finished reading a book by Shane Claiborne, a modern day radical living out his faith in an amazing way on the streets of Philadelphia. The book is titled Irresistable Revolution and I highly recommend it. Seriously.. go get it. Anyway it is basically the story of how this guy saw the injustice in the world around him and set out to fix those things based on Jesus Christ's model of community. He did it all, from going to Iraq to minister to hurting people during the thick of our war on terror to dropping $10,000 from the roofs of wall street to homeless gathered below. Amazing story. He uses a quote in the book from Mother Theresa that I think is one of the most profound statements I have ever heard. Here it is.. get your pencils. " We can do no great things.. only small things with GREAT love." Am I the only one that sees the power in those 12 short words. This came from a woman that in most peoples eyes would say she did some of the greatest humanitarian work of any person in history, yet she lived by a simple philosophy such as that. It puts so many things in perspective for me. In planning events for church the natural goal is to get thousands of people to attend, lots of money, lots of decisions.. We base our greatness as the american church on numbers and not on love and that is so wrong on many levels. I will be going to Vancouver in about 8 weeks and I really want this time to be unlike any time before. We have done some amazing things in my previous 2 trips there but this time.. I really want to model that philosophy in this trip. I want God to use me not as a tool to draw huge crowds whether it be at VBS or playing ultimate frisbee in the park but in loving people. Modeling my Christ in a way people may not see on a day to day basis.. I could really go on and on but I will instead leave you 2 or 3 people that may read this to ponder those incredible words. May God make my heart like that and allow me to live that out.