Quotessence
Home / Authors / C. Andrew Doyle

C. Andrew Doyle Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllMissional ChurchVocationPeaceMissionChurchJesusVocation QuotesChristian FaithDiscernmentNeighborlinessReformationVocationsApostlesChristian MissionChristianityChurch StructureCommunityCommunity BuildingDisciplesEvangelism

Famous C. Andrew Doyle Quotes

“Paul’s mission was profoundly shaped by the way God called him and invited him to reject his life of violence to take on the yoke of peace. Paul became the voice of God to the Gentiles and all those in the wider community who had no place in the inheritance of Israel. Paul began to proclaim that God's narrative of grace, begun with Abraham and Sarah, was meant for all people. Paul's conversion was actually the reconversion of the community of shalom. The community was reminded to be different from other religious communities, and different from the powers and authorities of the world. The community did not repay violence with violence, but practiced peace instead.”

PeaceVocationPaulShalomMissional ChurchVocation Quotes
Book:Vocatio: Imaging a Visible Church
Create image

“Jesus was definitely not inviting these fishermen into a church job or an engaging hobby, which is how many of us understand vocation in the Church today. If we are not careful, our ingrained expectation of a professional class of clergy will quickly sabotage our ability to understand the ministry of Jesus and the disciples. Our bias builds churchy furniture into this story where there is none. We put our church goggles on and read the idea that the disciples called on that seashore were the first priests of the church back into the scripture. They used to make money as fishermen, then they made their money as ministers. (Luke 10:4-11) This was not the case.”

JesusVocationMissional ChurchDisciples
Book:Vocatio: Imaging a Visible Church
Create image

“God invites and God sends all of God's people. This is not a professional or clerical invitation. God's call to ordinary people undergirds all other work done in God's name. The core of everything else the Church does is peaceful human interconnectivity. Decisions about who will do what are marginal. The most important thing the Church does is hear God's voice of shalom. This calling finds its first home in ordinary people living ordinary lives.”

MissionVocationMissional Church
Book:Vocatio: Imaging a Visible Church
Create image

“The meaning of vocation, as we have been using it, is a call to "go" on God's behalf. Vocation is about being invited to go be the voice of God. This is not a professional obligation, but rather a dynamic partnership of humans with God that has persisted from the very beginning. Adam and Eve worked with God in the caretaking of the Garden and creation. God walked with them in the evening to survey the work they were doing together. Humans have always been invited to join God and to "work it and keep it." (Genesis 2:15) We are possessed by God's invitation to speak and be a blessing to the world. We are occupied with undoing the violence of the world by ending the cycles of sibling rivalry. Humans are uniquely suitable to this vocation.”

VocationMissional ChurchInivtation
Book:Vocatio: Imaging a Visible Church
Create image

“The community of shalom is, by definition, a diversity of people living together. The community of shalom establishes an ethic of peace that incarnates the Body of Christ by going out into the world as the voice of God and rejecting the violence of the world. The polity of the community of shalom differs from the structures and powers of the world and stands as a sign of Christ’s judgment against those structures and powers by virtue of how different it is. The community of shalom embraces the sacrificial giving of self for the other.”

ChurchVocationCommunity BuildingMissional Church
Book:Vocatio: Imaging a Visible Church
Create image

“The work of an apostle, from the first ones sent out by Jesus to anyone aligned with the reign of peace, is to be God's loving word to every part of the world. Echoing the Word, they are sent out to confront the powers and principalities by rejecting state violence and revolutionary violence, and, instead putting on the armor of peace.”

JesusPeaceChurchVocationDiscernmentApostlesMissional Church
Book:Vocatio: Imaging a Visible Church
Create image

“Suffice it to say, the ecclesia, the community of peace, imagined on the Galilean seashore had changed. Like a pebble tossed in a pond with ever expanding ripples, the emergence of Christianity in the urban centers of the Roman Empire forced the Church to adopt new forms and structures for mission and ministry. Jesus’s movement became a thriving principality. At the close of the third century, an organized Church had replaced a disorganized but single-minded community on a mission of peace.”

PeaceChurchMissionVocationMissional Church
Book:Vocatio: Imaging a Visible Church
Create image

“God’s invitation to vocation also erodes the compartmentalization between our religious and professional lives. In the biblical worldview, the way of peace requires full participation. We cannot claim to be one person in one particular context or set of relations, and then a claim to be a totally different person in another context. There is no such thing as professional holy people. We live complete lives in continuity with God and our vocation is equally operative in every space we inhabit.”

PeaceHolinessMissionVocationChristian FaithMissional Church
Book:Vocatio: Imaging a Visible Church
Create image