I just wrapped up the book, Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different by Tullian Tchividjian. I really enjoyed the book. It gives a great discussion of how Christians are to be “in the world but not of the world” as Jesus prayed in John 17. I really enjoyed the book and have a new appreciation for my home church and the wide variety of backgrounds and the several generations represented there.
Here are some of my notes and highlights from the book:
• Christians make a difference in this world by being different from this world; they don’t make a difference by being the same.
• Color blindness is the apt metaphor for some: They miss the rich-hued splendor of the spiritual vision of life and see only the colder, duller world of black and white. —OS GUINNESS
• eternal, and “what is seen” replaces what is unseen (Hebrews 11:3).
• consider how air conditioning forced people off of their front porches where they would gather and talk together into the cool seclusion of their air conditioned homes.
• In this windowless world, God, transcendence, and mystery have become less and less imaginable. All of life is “rationalized.”
• become less and less imaginable. All of life is “rationalized.” (because of technology)
• Our generation is crying out for something different, something higher, something beyond this world.
• People in today’s world are desperately reaching, not just upward, but backward. They yearn for a day gone by when things seemed more constant and less shallow.
• To be truly relevant, you have to say things that are unfashionably eternal, not trendy.
• Back in the 1950s, when my grandfather was becoming a well-known preacher of the gospel, a famous actor pulled him aside and said, “Billy, don’t ever try to compete with Hollywood, because Hollywood will always do it better than you. You give the world the one thing Hollywood can’t—the straightforward, timeless truth of the gospel.” For more than sixty years, that’s exactly what he did.
• Even if we start out strong—on fire for God after a profound conversion experience—we’ll quickly lose steam if we don’t have a compelling vision fueling us to press on and strain forward against all opposition.c9cdea9B001NLKYH4
• As Richard John Neuhaus observes, “Christianity in America is not challenging the ‘habits of the heart’ and ‘habits of the mind’ that dominate American culture.”
• God has called Christians to play a role by celebrating what’s good and true and beautiful, working for change in what isn’t, and looking forward in hope to God’s redemption of all things.c9cdea9B001NLKYH4
• When we operate according to the idea “If we build it, they will come,” we fail to take into account this distinct nature of new covenant ministry and mission. Instead we’re called to operate with this mind-set: “God is building; therefore we should go.”
• In becoming Christians we don’t need to retreat from the vocational calling we already have. Nor do we need to justify that calling, whatever it is, in terms of its spiritual value or evangelistic usefulness. We simply exercise whatever our calling is with new God-glorifying motives, goals, and standards—and with a renewed commitment to performing our calling with greater excellence and higher objectives.c9cdea9B001NLKYH4Note: in my job as a divorce attorney it is hard because i know God hatesthings that cause sin and harm the institutions he set up such as marriage but i think he intends for christians to help thosein need. a parallel example would be that God hates poverty or starvation but not those that help people who are hungry or poor.
• The only way to know him deeply is to have many different types of Christian people in your life, since each person will help to reveal a part of God that you can’t see by yourself.
• all of us need other lights than our own to see more of his myriad facets.
• real encouragement is the verbal affirmation of someone’s strength, giftedness, or accomplishment, along with the realization that God the Creator is the ultimate source behind whatever’s being affirmed.