Becky Pippert Is Not a Trend

"Out of the Saltshaker and into the World", by Becky Pippert, is a modern Christian classic. It was a book that influenced me among the many books from IVPress that I devoured as a young Christian. In 1983 I was a senior at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, involved in Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, and so hungry to grow in my faith. Pippert's book on how to share one's faith was so refreshing, holistic, relevant, and profound. There's neither a method for how to evangelize nor a quota for whom you evangelized.

Here are some quotes:

"Jesus was wholly concerned with God and wholly concerned with people. That is, according to Jesus the human cause is God's cause. His lifestyle rose out of the simple truth of loving God, our neighbors, and ourselves. His life was a constant celebration of the supreme value, dignity and preciousness of human life."

"The teaching that life is relationship did not begin with Jesus. It is a fundamental biblical principle. To be is to be in relation to someone. The Trinity evidences this." 

"We can show people that they are right to want to fill the void, and then they may be surprised by joy to discover that the emptiness inside is a God-shaped vacuum."

"And so He (Jesus) turns to us, as He did to Peter, and says, 'Feed My sheep.' It is that simple. Whatever gifts you have been given, whatever likes or talents, use them, give them, spend yourself on God's world as Jesus spent Himself on you. Comfort His People."

"...He is the only one in the universe who can control us without destroying us. No one will ever love you like Jesus."

When I heard that she was coming to speak in our church in Rome, I pulled her book off my shelf, and found it filled with my notes in the margins, in the front and back. Then when she spoke to our flock, there was the same authentic, refreshing, stoked delight in Christ and His Gospel.

Oh Lord, renew my heart, restore my vision. Send me to shine your light and to truly love people as Jesus does.