Fundraising

From the perspective of the gospel, fundraising is not a response to a crisis. Fundraising is, first and foremost, a form of ministry. It is a way of announcing our vision and inviting other people into our mission. Vision and mission are so central to the life of God's people that without vision we perish and without mission we lose our way. Vision brings together needs and resources to meet those needs. Vision also shows us new directions and opportunities for our mission. Vision gives us courage to speak when we might want to remain silent.

Henri NouwenThe Spirituality of Fundraising

Prayer and action

Prayer and action... can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows into powerless pietism, and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation. If prayer leads us into a deeper unity with the compassionate Christ, it will always give rise to concrete acts of service. And if concrete acts of service do indeed lead us to a deeper solidarity with the poor, the hungry, the sick, the dying, and the oppressed, they will always give rise to prayer. In prayer we meet Christ, and in him all human suffering. In service we meet people, and in them the suffering Christ.

Henri Nouwen
Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life

Being graded

When we start being too impressed by the results of our work, we slowly come to the erroneous conviction that life is one large scoreboard where someone is listing the points to measure our worth. And before we are fully aware of it, we have sold our soul to the many grade-givers. That means we are not only in the world, but also of the world. Then we become what the world makes us.

Henri Nouwen
Out of Solitude

Loneliness

The roots of loneliness are very deep and cannot be touched by optimistic advertisement, substitute love images or social togetherness. They find their food in the suspicion that there is no one who cares and offers love without conditions, and no place where we can be vulnerable without being used.

Henri Nouwen
Reaching Out

Held in prayer

"A life in prayer is a life in open hands where you are not ashamed of your weakness but realize that it is more perfect for a [human] to be led by the other than to seek to hold everything in [their] own hand."

- Henri J.M. Nouwen

Hospitality

Christians have always been hosts and guests, natives and strangers, citizens and sojourners.  In our contemporary world of strangers, tourists, and nomads, Henri Nouwen proclaims, 'When hostility is converted into hospitality then fearful strangers can become guests....Then, in fact, the disctinction between host and guest proves to be artifical and evaporates in the recognition of newfound unity. '

In a time of hate-filled extremism, some Christians still long for a world of nonviolent love, of reconciling peace.  Of human wholeness, of true brother and sisterhood, in God's compassion.  For them, hospitality opens the way to practicing peace, doing a tangible thing that can change the world.

As Martin Marty, a noted Lutheran theologian, says, 'In a world where strangers meet strangers with gunfire, barrier walls, spiritually landmined paths, the spirit of revenge, and the record of intransigence, it sounds almost dainty to come on the scene and urge that hospitality has a strong and promising place.

Diana Butler Bass: Christianity for the Rest of Us, HarperOne, published 2006

The Henri Nouwen quote comes from Reaching Out: the three movements of the spiritual life (New York: Doubleday, 1975) pg 47.
The Marty Martin quote comes from When Faiths Collide, pg 128 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005)

The Divine Embrace

[The divine embrace] is the place where I so much want to be, but am so fearful of being. It is the place where I will receive all I desire, all that I ever hoped for, all that I will ever need, but it is also the place where I have to let go of all I most want to hold on to. It is the place that confronts me with the fact that truly accepting love, forgiveness, and healing is often much harder than giving it. It is the place beyond earning, deserving, and rewarding. It is the place of surrender and complete trust. Henri J. M. Nouwen
The Return of the Prodigal Son

The true friend

The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing ... not healing, not curing ... that is a friend who cares.

- Henri J.M. Nouwen, from his book Out of Solitude