Quotes from Rob Bell

You embrace your impotence, your powerlessness, your lack of control over the outcomes—you make peace with all that you can't do, with your limits, with all the people you can't help.

The workers all get paid the same because you can't divide the infinite

Why do we do the things that we do?

Far too often, we don't start because we can't get our minds around the entire thing. We don't take the first step because we can't figure out the seventeenth step.

started to see what all those yogis and Buddhas and monks and nuns and sages and gurus across the ages were smiling about. This experience we're all having here, this event we were born into— it's profoundly, deeply, fundamentally off.

Why would anybody become a Christian?" That's a question lots of people have—educated, reasonable, modern people who find becoming a Christian an "explosive," not to mention an inconceivable, thing to do.

To do anything new—to do the 1—requires tremendous mental fortitude to not think about 2 or 3 yet. That time will come. And it is not now. Now is the time for 1. You start with 1. And you work on that. Just 1. And when 1 is done, you move to 2.

in between. It's like the whole thing is winking at us.

What is your 1? At any moment in the day, you can do only one thing at a time. And the more intentional you are about knowing what your 1 is, the more present you will be.

Spirit is often lurking in whatever it is you most dislike.

The measure of a sermon is not whether it affirms what you already believe. A sermon is not a product to be consumed and then evaluated according to how good it was or whether it was pleasing or enjoyable.

I was developing the musculature, bit by bit by bit, to lean in instead of away. To listen, when my first instinct was to plug my ears. To open up, when I wanted to shut down.

When we hear people saying they can't believe in a God who gets angry—yes, they can. How should God react to a child being forced into prostitution? How should God feel about a country starving while warlords hoard the food supply? What kind of God wouldn't get angry at a financial scheme that robs thousands of people of their life savings?

If a sermon can be resolved in the time it took to deliver it, then it missed something central to what a sermon even is, which is connected with what the Eucharist is.

And then, most of all, I hope you see Jesus's invitation to be a force for good in the world, to wake up to our calling, to be saved in all of the ways that matter most. —Rob Bell     November 2011

Success says, What more can I get? Craft says, Can you believe I get to do this?

When you do crash and burn, ask yourself lots of questions about whatever it is that happened: What can you learn here? How will you see things differently moving forward? Why did I do that? leads to, What have I learned? leads to, How will I do it differently in the future?

The universe is unfinished, and God is looking for partners in the ongoing creation of the world.

The universe has been expanding for over thirteen billion years, and we never stop being invited to expand along with it.

When we talk about heaven, then, or eternal life, or the afterlife—any of that—it's important that we begin with the categories and claims that people were familiar with in Jesus's first-century Jewish world. They did not talk about a future life somewhere else, because they anticipated a coming day when the world would be restored, renewed, and redeemed and there would be peace on earth.

You throw yourself into it, and you surrender the outcome, all at the same time.

when you're a pastor, your heart and soul and paycheck and doubts and faith and hopes and struggles and intellect and responsibility are all wrapped up together in a life/job that is very public.

Holism is when two plus two equals infinity.

There are always two risks. There's the risk of not trying something new, and there's the risk of not trying it. . . . Either way, there's risk. And sometimes stepping out and trying something new is actually the less risky thing to do.