Wednesday, August 29, 2007

The Fundamental State

I've been reading Holy Discontent: Fueling the Fire That Ignites Personal Vision by Bill Hybels this month. This passage stuck out to me powerfully this morning. I wanted to share it with everyone. It comes on page 118.

Professor Quinn puts it this way in his book, Building the Bridge as You Walk On It: "When we accept the world as it is [by living in the normal state], we deny our ability to see something better, and hence our ability to be something better. We become what we behold."

Accepting the world as it is.
Denying our ability to see something better.
Denying our ability to be something better.

This is life in the normal state.
What's not normal, Professor Quinn says, is embracing the fact that another state exists.

"To remain in the normal state is ultimately to choose slow death," asserts Quinn. The normal state is so self-seeking that you can spin your wheels for a lifetime and never once impact the world around you. In the fundamental state, however, people care so much about getting results that they begin to move and breathe in a totally different realm. They operate with intentionality. They act with massive doses of enthusiasm and persistence. They surrender their ego because the cause simply can't afford their pride. They open themselves up to any and all new ideas and forms of input--regardless where those suggestions come from.

People who operate in a "fundamental" state of mind concentrate at higher levels and focus more intensely because the goal they're pursuing demands it. They take risks they wouldn't normally take ... because they have to--there's to much at stake not to! Their creativity kicks up a notch. Their energy soars. Their passion swells.

What a picture of what can happen to a church if we accept or don't accept the state we are in. I hope that can be an inspiration to someone.

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