Translation, and Going Local

"If we take the Incarnation seriously, mission becomes more like translation than ideological, territorial, or even spiritual conquest. God models translation by pouring out the divine self into human form; as Walls puts it, 'The Incarnation is God's perfect translation.' God is an unapologetic locavore, using local means (human biology, local customs and languages, and cultural institutions like families and religious communities) to translate the good news of salvation into human form. And then, Christ sends us into the world as translations of God's love as well--'lesser translations, to be sure,' says Walls--but translations nonetheless."

-pg 97, Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church, by Kendra Creasy Dean

Building

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."

 - George MacDonald, from C. S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity"