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A Non-Anxious Presence: How a Changing and Complex World will Create a Remnant of Renewed Christian Leaders
Mark Sayers
Top 10 Best Quotes
“We have been taught by the great strongholds of our day, whether formed with a structure of secularism or cultural Christianity (or a hybrid of both), that pressure is a bad thing. That it is possible to live life and walk through the raindrops without getting wet. So as the cultural pressure increases against the church in our gray zone moment and we find ourselves in a wilderness, those who turn to God, who choose not to run from the wilderness, who seek His presence in the wilderness, will be transformed with spiritual authority.”
“It becomes nearly impossible for the healthier members of a system or its leadership to see the bigger issue and tackle systemic issues because the focus is brought back to the latest crisis and the feverish emotional responses that are swamping the network.”
“As a network is swamped by chronic anxiety, it is marked by reactivity. Those within the system no longer act rationally, but rather, high emotion becomes the dominant form of interaction. The system’s focus is directed toward the most emotionally immature and reactive members. Those who are more mature and healthy begin to adapt their behavior to appease the most irrational and unhealthy. This creates a scenario where the most emotionally unhealthy and immature members in the system become de facto leaders, shaping the emotional landscape with the focus on their negative behavior and what they see as the negative behavior of others.”
“freedom. In our disconnection from God, we rebel against responsibility, relationships, and life-giving rules. Thus, anxiety and independency live in a codependent relationship.”
“as Fareed Zakaria argues, while the United States remains the world’s most powerful political and military state, “In all other dimensions—industrial, financial, educational, social, cultural—the distribution of power is shifting, moving away from American dominance.… we are moving into a post-American world.”
“Yet the story of Saul is a cautionary tale. It shows us that one of the worst things that can happen to a leader is for them to have success before they have been humbled, broken, and prepared by the Lord.”
“Yes, there are times when it appears as if the darkness is winning. When the direction of culture, the circumstances of our lives, the poverty of spiritual life among God’s people seems tilted toward difficulty, decline, and even death rather than renewal. This is particularly true during our gray zone moment. The church seems divided, the culture unraveling, and the world reeling toward chaos. Yet, at moments like ours, we must remember that God has seeded the world with His dream of renewal.”
“Without this wilderness, “we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self. Jesus himself entered into this furnace. There he was tempted with the three compulsions of the world: to be relevant (‘turn stones into loaves’), to be spectacular (‘throw yourself down’), and to be powerful (‘I will give you all these kingdoms’). There he affirmed God as the only source of his identity (‘You must worship the Lord your God and serve him alone’).”
“We will not fully understand our problems in human relationships until we see them as the expression of the active rebellion and independency which has afflicted human nature. A vast arsenal of weapons against human fellowship grows out of this route. Fear, anger, jealousy, envy, bitterness, revenge, flattery, accusation, and many other injurious conditions develop from the sickness of a human nature estranged from God and trying unsuccessfully to defend its own “god-status” against all comers.”
“Thousands of Persians cannot worship freely in person; they can only meet through online worship. Yet the Persian church is exponentially growing.”
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