Author. Parent. Jesus-follower. 🏳️🌈 Trying to leave everyone a little more loved than I found them. [email protected] 🇨🇦
Guelph, Ontario
Joined September 2009
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Jonathan Puddle ~ OPTIMIST PRIME retweeted
The loss of hope does not always look like despair. Sometimes it looks like control.
We know we have stopped hoping in God when we take matters into our own hands.
Jonathan Puddle ~ OPTIMIST PRIME retweeted
"God said, 'Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth.'" (Genesis 1:26) – God made us to care for the earth, bearing witness to his own care for the world.
Jonathan Puddle ~ OPTIMIST PRIME retweeted
Two millennia later, people are still asking “Who is my neighbor?” hoping God will say “Just this small circle of people who are like you.”
- Chad Eslinger (@chadmeslinger)
Jonathan Puddle ~ OPTIMIST PRIME retweeted
Nobody tells you this but parenting a teenager is 49% trying to decipher whether they actually don’t feel good or they just don’t want to go to school today.
Jonathan Puddle ~ OPTIMIST PRIME retweeted
Overheard at a Canadian church leaders’ conference this weekend:
“We need less apologetics and more apologies.”
Jonathan Puddle ~ OPTIMIST PRIME retweeted
Came across this exchange someone had w/Karl Barth.
Student: “Sir, don’t you think that God has revealed himself in other religions & not only Christianity?”
Barth: “No, God has not revealed himself in any religion, including Christianity. He has revealed himself in His Son.”
Jonathan Puddle ~ OPTIMIST PRIME retweeted
One of my favorites of all time -
“Our godlike beauty is hidden under curtains of shame.”
— St. Gregory of Nyssa
Jonathan Puddle ~ OPTIMIST PRIME retweeted
Beware of anyone in authority who is stoking fear, hate, and aggression into the hearts of their followers. They are only interested in their own power.
Seek out those who are stoking love, kindness, and compassion into the hearts of others, while empowering the most vulnerable.
Jonathan Puddle ~ OPTIMIST PRIME retweeted
Advent and the Christmas season can often feel overwhelming and rushed. Make some quiet space for your busy soul.
Join us @jonathanpuddle and Vania Levans for prayer & spiritual practices for a slowed down pace on November 30th and December 7th.
newleafnetwork.ca/events/adv…
Jonathan Puddle ~ OPTIMIST PRIME retweeted
There are so many reasons pastors feel taxed and overwhelmed, and as a pastor turned pastor-to-pastors I and others are deeply involved in the formation and care of pastors.
But the reasons for the clergy crisis run deeper.
Pastors are formed within individualistic, consumeristic, competitive, and comparative cultures. And we’re still burdened by the inheritance of an Empire-mentality where the Cross was turned into the logo for a conquering clergy. Just listen for the militaristic language we use, even the names of ecclesial networks. Bigger, better, stronger, faster is exhausting.
Many of us offer pastors care and practices for health. But small adaptations will only help so much. We need a revolution of pastoral imagination and practice. – at Grand Rapids, MI
Jonathan Puddle ~ OPTIMIST PRIME retweeted
“Anywhere you feel fear in your life there’s room for more love” - @jonathanpuddle
Jonathan Puddle ~ OPTIMIST PRIME retweeted
Rest is not a break from accomplishing Gods will, rest is actually what accomplishes His will. - @jonathanpuddle – at Kitchener, Ontario
Jonathan Puddle ~ OPTIMIST PRIME retweeted
The healing stories in the Gospels are made to order to short circuit our systems of worthiness and deserving.
They're designed to reconnect people who have been excluded. To fully grasp this, when reading these stories we might substitute the word healing for inclusion.
Jonathan Puddle ~ OPTIMIST PRIME retweeted
The more I discover Jesus through the eyes of our marginalized brothers and sisters, the more I fall in love with him.
And the more my heart breaks for the folks who only know Jesus from their privileged perspectives.
Jonathan Puddle ~ OPTIMIST PRIME retweeted
As Jesus followers, “we should be carriers of the medicine of mercy.” @BrianZahnd – at St Joseph, MO
Jonathan Puddle ~ OPTIMIST PRIME retweeted
The irony of disfellowshipping churches that encourage women to preach is that none of us would be in Christ today if it weren’t for a woman preaching the Gospel to men.
Jonathan Puddle ~ OPTIMIST PRIME retweeted
If you disfellowship churches for empowering & championing female leaders, you’ve basically disfellowshipped Jesus.
Jonathan Puddle ~ OPTIMIST PRIME retweeted
"We recognize unmistakably the imperishable need of man to live in beauty. There is no satisfying this need save in play."
Johan Huizinga
Jonathan Puddle ~ OPTIMIST PRIME retweeted
Sacred rest is spiritual resistance in a frenzied culture. Trying to practise rest ushers us into a struggle internally as beliefs about our intrinsic value is exposed. It also comes with a challenge externally which reveals our cultural beliefs around worth/work.
Jonathan Puddle ~ OPTIMIST PRIME retweeted
Healthy boredom is essential for a rich creative life. I would even venture to say that boredom is essential for happiness itself. And yet the world we are creating for ourselves seems intent on pushing good, honest boredom to extinction and replacing it with mere tedium.