I went on Steve Coerper's radio show today and we talked about Simple Church and covered some of the information from the documentary "What is Simple Church?" . He's based in North Carolina and broadcasts through BlogTalkRadio. 
Below are quotes from the letter. The letter, which can be read in full here (40 minutes), displays a tremendous poise and clarity in the face of very treacherous conditions. Though the establishment of simple church can in no way be compared to the civil rights struggle of Dr. Kings era, the lessons that Dr. King's life teaches can easily be applied to the establishment of a more organic church in our current Christian culture, lessons about our own tenacity and lessons about the way we carry ourselves in making our arguments.
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“Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.”
“…as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.”
“For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant ‘Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.””
“Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this ‘hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”
“So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love?"
“But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.”
“Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world.”
“Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.”
“If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.”
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To download a free copy of Scott's new book,"Spiritual Anatomy: God's Building Blocks for Maturity, Ministry, and Multiplication," click here or visitwww.lulu.com/expectationmedia.
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So, something fun....
