"sloppy and unpredicatble and meandering"

"The Reformation paradigm, which tempts us to replace relationship with reason, is captured in the word belief. It is concerned with right thinking and adherence to a particular way of articulating biblical teaching. It involves systematizing and assenting--and excluding those who don?t fully subscribe to the current fashion in creedal statements. Belief is inert. It is intellectual,
defensible, and typically irrelevant.

In contrast, the missional paradigm is a way of life--the life of faith. It is a quest for discovery. It is nothing less than the pursuit of the GodLife relationship. Faith is kinetic and transformational. It is described in Scripture as following, forgiving, seeking, rejoicing, sharing. It is the life of relating to God, to others, and to God?s creation. To the Western mind it can appear sloppy and
unpredictable and meandering. Yes, it is all of those things, and much more!
Belief is Plato; faith is Jesus.

As we consider God?s re-Orientation of Christianity, bear in mind that it is movement, not statement. It is more about exploring than about ensconcing. Jesus asked his closest followers: Who do you say I am?? Each of us, if we are to follow him today, must answer this same question. And as we seek the answer, we find that it is less a question than a quest.

The yoking of relationship and quest is deliberate. In the Bible, it is more that God seeks us out for relationship than that we seek God out. In fact, the more we insulate, the more God insinuates. The more we hide, the more God hounds.

We have been losing the battle in finding attributes that distinguish humans from the rest of creation: Crows use utensils, orangutans spell, parrots tally, dolphins and chimps fake and feint, songbirds experience REM sleep just like humans, bird brains can outsmart human brains at finding things. But there is one thing that clearly sets Homo sapiens apart. Part of the uniqueness of humanity, beings created in the image of God, is our instinct to seek and to enjoy the pleasures of seeking. It is born in us to dare, to desire, and to delight in the Quest. Questing-made-possible is who we are. Some say it's our sole advantage as a species.

But the Quest is not a set of questions. The Quest is the mystery of getting lost in the GodLife relationship."

-Leonard Sweet; "Out of the Question...Into the Mystery : Getting Lost in the GodLife Relationship," p. 10