Peter L. Steinke Quotes & Sayings

All relationship systems become anxious. People put together and inevitably anxiety will arise. Anxiety can be infectious. We can give it to others or catch it from them. What precisely triggers anxiety is unique to each system. Common Activators are significant changes and losses. They upset the stable patterns and balance of the system. — Peter L. Steinke

Anxious systems also fail to get a clear view of things. Embedded in their dread, they lose a sense of proportion. They have little awareness of what is happening and how it is being mutually maintained. Emotionally cramps the broader view. — Peter L. Steinke

N. T. Wright explains, "What [Jesus] was promising for that future, and doing in that present, was not saving souls for a disembodied eternity, but rescuing people from the corruption and decay of the way the world presently is so they could enjoy, already in the present, that renewal of creation which is God's ultimate purpose - and so they could thus become colleagues and partners in that larger project."1 A promise of a new creation and an invitation to a new vocation stretches beyond "me and Jesus" to God's worldwide purposes. The mission of the church must be informed and shaped by how the New Testament presents the future hope. — Peter L. Steinke

The purpose of the local church is not primarily to be one's church home or extended family, though it can be at times. And it is not to survive by obtaining more people for its support base. Its purpose is to invite people to be part of the true mission of the church. Reception into the church is only a threshold to involvement in its mission. The task of the church is not to accumulate attendees. The church is a school for developing agents of the new creation from among those who are the beneficiaries of God's grace. — Peter L. Steinke