iCrucified

A little NUDGE…

A little over a year ago I posted a multi-part review of Leonard Sweet’s book “So Beautiful.” This week I started his latest work, “NUDGE.” I will be providing a full (probably another multi-part) review of this book in the coming days/weeks. Anyway, the point of my mentioning So Beautiful in relationship with NUDGE is my first impression following the preface and opening comments of the first chapter. While I thought So Beautiful was the culmination of much of the thinking and study from Len Sweet, it appears at first glance that NUDGE is an extension of the MRI (missional, relational, incarnational) model in practice. I am excited with what I’m reading; very excited. I feel the welling up in my soul exclaiming; “yes, yes, YES!” Let me share a teaser quote from NUDGE and show you what I mean… Sweet writes:

I believe the lifeblood of evangelism is not propositions, but prepositions. For God to do something through us, God must be doing something in us. If we are not always evangelizing ourselves, we have no business evangelizing others. In fact, it is usually as God’s grace courses through us to someone else that we become aware of God’s love in and for us. Evangelism is an invitation for broken people together to meet the Christ who loves broken people. We all are damaged but loved, crushed but cherished, with a divine embrace. When love is the motivation for evangelism, nudging is love in action. And the cracks in our broken vases are where Jesus leaks out first.  ~~Leonard Sweet; NUDGE p.28

I love this. I want to live in this constant and continual state of awareness of God’s Presence working in me and working through me…working in others and through others… to perfect and transform the brokenness of a creation He desperately desires to reconcile and restore. It is a divine mystery that is unfolding right in front of us and I don’t want to miss a nanosecond of it. Apparently, it takes a “nudge” every now and then to move us to action.

More to come…