I read the previous Pdf file which I can’t recall where I saved it. But Radical Newness: The Essence of Being Church is a must read (via Aaron Klinefelter).

Consider the following insights from Gordon Cosby:
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… From the beginning of time, God has longed for change. God’s very nature is that which produces newness. Along the way God did a radically new thing and produced us, new persons building with God a new society where love reigns.

… Most of us today are living, to some degree, as addicted persons, striving anxiously after power and money and prestige and relevance, trapped in the turbulence of wanting more. These addictions are so subtle for most of us that we have the illusion of being free people when in actuality we are immersed in society’s expectations. We have given ourselves to God, but who decides what we do with our lives? Usually, we do. We are subtle control freaks, truly believing we are turning our lives over to God but demanding a minimum of comforts, whether it be good health or a secure home or caring friends. We are addicted to having more and more comfort, which society says we deserve.

… Think of those initial followers of Jesus. They each made that radical first decision to follow Jesus, which meant also a commitment to a little group of 11 others who hung in there together, struggling to understand what Jesus was sharing with them. It was all so alien to their understanding of life, but something — the very Being of God in their midst — kept drawing them. After three years of being constantly together, after watching their beloved friend die in love for them, and after meeting him in his resurrected Being and having the Holy Spirit fall on them, only then did they grasp at a new level what they had said yes to. When we say yes to Christ’s invitation and then commit to stay with it within the bonds of intimate, stressful, joyful, growing community, we find ourselves freed by love to become literally the Body of Christ, in service to the world.

… Our lack of rest and stillness is not just a personal affliction; it affects the way we listen for God’s voice, the way we are in community, the way we respond to suffering. The creation of the Sabbath shows us that even God cannot be fully who God is intended to be without incorporating rest into the rhythm of the created order.

… When we see the culture as it really is, with its empty, illusory promises of success and power; when we plant ourselves into the common life of a small group of people intent on listening to Jesus and following wherever he leads; when we rest — pulling away from the important activities of our days in order just to hang out with the One who loves us beyond all measure; when we begin to live this way, we will find our hearts flowering, opening to the needs of the afflicted, the oppressed, the poor.

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Ah .. I need to read the whole piece again.