Craig Greenfield Quotes

You say you care about the poor? Tell me their names.

I have found that if I pray for God to move a mountain, I must be prepared to wake up next to a shovel.

The Western church needs to regain its confidence in the role of outsiders, relocators who come in humility and grace to learn first and then to offer a different perspective.

Those who hold the most power and authority in society are the least likely to want to change the system that produces poverty. And yet, these are the ones we've empowered to control the work of the charities that are supposed to serve the poor.

The law cannot be our ultimate moral guide. Slavery was lawful. The Holocaust was legal. Segregation was legally sanctioned...Simply put, the law does not dictate our ethics. God does. So it should not surprise us that the One we follow was executed as a criminal, and that there will be times when we are called to break unjust laws ourselves.

As Jesus showed us in his life and ministry, healing and transformation flow out of relationship—not the delivery of services. True love flows out of mutuality, where we blur the lines between those who are serving and those who are receiving, and where we humbly acknowledge that we all have something of offer and something to receive from one another...As Christians, we have become so fixated on our roles as servants that we miss out on relationships of mutuality that the Spirit wants to knit between people...This is the beautiful picture of mutuality...each one is invited to participate by serving others. When we allow those we have labeled victims or the poor to serve and participate in our acts of transforming love, we usher in the kingdom of God.

Jesus said 'the poor you will always have with you,' and I believe that this is because as followers of Jesus we are called to follow him into those places of poverty. To be friends with the poor, to go where Jesus would go and do what Jesus would do. Some he will call to follow him to the poorest countries of the world. But our richest nations also have dark corners to which Jesus would go: inner-city poverty and sadness, addiction, homelessness, prostitution and brokenness.

But in my heart I knew that if the God of the Bible could take a little orphan girl named Esther, and raise her up to become Queen of a foreign land as part of God's wonderful plan to save the nation of Israel, then that same God could also take a little orphan girl named Molica and raise her up to become the first godly Prime Minister of a broken and torn nation such as Cambodia, to bring healing and hope to her people.

What if Jesus never called us to a white picket fence, 2.4 kids and a boring job?

...when Jesus left the most exclusive gated community in the universe to live with the people he loved and gave his life for, he turned everything we know and believe about life on its head.

Jesus is not respectable or nice in the sense of being placid or uncontroversial. He is not necessarily a good citizen. Jesus is wildly and prophetically subversive, because beyond our affluent comfortable suburbs, not all is right. And something has to change.

So when people ask me whether I preach the gospel to the poor, I echo the words of St. Francis: "It is no use walking anywhere to preach, unless our walking is our preaching." In other words, unless I am living the upside-down kingdom of God, it is simply absurd to go around talking about it.

As Jesus showed us in his life and ministry, healing and transformation flow out of relationship—not the delivery of services. True love flows out of mutuality, where we blur the lines between those who are serving and those who are receiving, and where we humbly acknowledge that we all have something of offer and something to receive from one another.

As Jesus showed us in his life and ministry, healing and transformation flow out of relationship—not the delivery of services. True love flows out of mutuality, where we blur the lines between those who are serving and those who are receiving, and where we humbly acknowledge that we all have something of offer and something to receive from one another...As Christians, we have become some fixated on our roles as servants that we miss out on relationships of mutuality that the Spirit wants to knit between people.

When we try to describe the love of God in words, it's like listening to a street preacher talk about salvation. Our words can rarely speak as powerfully as the lives we live together, so when people get together and create a space of welcome for others, the Spirit moves, and everyone experiences the love of God embodied.

When we try to describe the love of God in words, it's like listening to a street preacher talk about salvation. Our words can rarely speak as powerfully as the lives we live together, so when people get together and create a space of welcome for others, the Spirit moves, and everyone experiences the love of God embodied. This is especially magical for those who are used to being excluded, rather than welcomed. It is the radical welcome of Christ with skin on.

If you are seeking the work God made you to do, search for the deepest inclination of your heart and follow it to where it meets the suffering of the world.