"Beneath all the great accomplishments of our time, there is a deep current of despair. While efficiency and control are the great aspirations of our society, the loneliness, isolation, lack of friendship and intimacy, broken relationships, boredom, feelings of emptiness and depression, and a deep sense of uselessness fill the hearts of millions of people in our success-oriented world."
"From a worldly vantage point, ministers may not feel relevant or competent or needed anymore in our secular world- but under the success, power, popularity, wealth, there is a great moral and spiritual poverty...Is there anyone who loves me? Is there anybody who really cares? Is there anybody who wants to stay home for me? Is there anybody who wants to be with me when I'm not in control , when I feel like crying? Is there anyone who can hold me and give me a a sense of belonging?"
"The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation that allows them to enter into a deep solidarity with the anguish underlying all the glitter of success, and to bring the light of Jesus there."
-Henri Nouwen In the Name of Jesus
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