changing the world on Cultural Assumptions

Contemporary society assumes that we make a choice: one member of a household will be the “homemaker” and the other the “breadwinner” (i.e., in the marketplace generating income to sustain the home). ...

First, we get our calling wrong when we imagine that God needs us, to be the hero of our own story, rather than Christ. Second, we routinely misdiagnose the problem of our world, underestimating estim...

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

A well-known fact in community development circles is that if you want to enter a community, you introduce yourself to the leader, most often a man. But if you want to learn how the community function...

Jesus explains what undergirds the actions of Paul, Isaiah, and Rev. Dr. King in two of his Beatitudes. He says, “Blessed are those who grieve, for they will be comforted. . . . Blessed are those who ...

Yes, we mark our heads with ashes—public shows of piety are not in themselves evil. But we must guard our motivations and do most of our spiritual work in private, because the privacy of those acts re...

God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that we may live deep within our hearts. God bless us with righteous anger at injustice, oppression, and exp...

You can never have an impact on society if you have not changed yourself.

Christians are supposed not merely to endure change, nor even to profit by it, but to cause it.

A different world cannot be built by indifferent people.

Until recently, most Americans didn’t know that women were pivotal to the NASA space program as far back as the 1950s. Their names and accomplishments were lost to the common history we grew up studyi...

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

Pastor: Peter challenges Christians to live differently than the world around them with these instructions:   Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority, People: for...

Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intellige...

The Holy Spirit says: You are it. You are God's plan. In a thirsty world, people need to be refreshed. It is a broken world, and people need to be healed. Now get out there and do it!

Beauty will save the world.

American history books contain stories of women who changed society with their hard work and insistence on justice. The women of the suffrage movement clad in white, those active in the temperance mov...

Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.

Gracious God, thank you for the gift of work. There are times when we experience work along the lines of your intentions, when work is fulfilling and fruitful. For these moments we thank you. Yet, we...

It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference.

But could you imagine how valuable it would be to be able to change people’s thoughts, actions, behaviors across a whole host of areas from one to another? This is precisely the question Dan and Chip...

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.

I found what I was looking for and purchased a paperback copy of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. The Idiot was published in 1868 and was Dostoevsky’s attempt to create a perfect soul in the character of Princ...

Vocation comes from the Latin  voceru , to call, and means the work a man is called to by God. There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem i...

What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.

The mysterious choosing of the people of Israel forms the imaginative backdrop to the New Testament concept of election . The mystery of the election of the church is not, as in Augustine’s framing, ...

Do any of you know the name of the inventor of dynamite? It might sound familiar once you hear it, it’s Alfred Nobel. In 1867, Nobel, Alfred Nobel, who was a Swedish chemist invented a new high explos...