Philip Yancey

Philip Yancey sees our blasé attitude toward the faithfulness of God in the waitstaff At Yellowstone. Even when they are finished their chores, they don't look up and marvel at the geiser going off. After all, they see it so often.

Family is the one human institution we have no choice over. We get in simply by being born, and as a result we are involuntarily thrown together with a menagerie of strange and unlike people. Church calls for another step: to voluntarily choose to band together with a strange menagerie because of a common bond in Jesus Christ. I have found that such a community more resembles a family than any other human institution. Henri Nouwen once defined a community as __ place where the person you least want to live with always lives._ His definition applies equally to the group that gathers each Thanksgiving and the group that congregates each Sunday morning. (p. 64-65, Church: Why Bother?)

Jesus gave us a model for the work of the church at the Last Supper. While his disciples kept proposing more organization _ Hey, let's elect officers, establish hierarchy, set standards of professionalism _ Jesus quietly picked up a towel and basin of water and began to wash their feet.

We admit that we will never reach our ideal in this life, a distinctive the church claims that most other human institutions try to deny.

Misunderstanding must be nakedly exposed before true understanding can begin to flourish.