Being Versus Doing Part Uno

This idea is where my heart has been a lot recently.

"Cultures are not born in a vacuum. The fuel of a culture is what is referred to as ethos. The fuel of ethose are values, which I am convinced are deeper and more primal than beliefs. It is far more important to change a person's passions than their beliefs. You can believe many things without being passionate about them, but you cannot be passionate about something without believing in it. The revolution Jesus began 2000 years ago does not simply change our theology, but more powerfully it transforms our pathos. The dynamic tension between the message and the culture is not about what Jesus once said but about what Jesus is saying. The intersection is not simply between an ancient message and a contemporary context but between an eternal God and this moment in history.
The real issue facing the church is not essentially about methodology or even preserving the message; the real issue is why the church is so unaffected by the transforming presence of the living God. Jesus lives in every time and place in human history. He both makes Himself known and manifests Himself through the Body of Christ. We should give up our role as preservationists -- the church was never intended to be the Jewish version of the mummification of God. God is not lost in the past, He is active in the present. Our mandate is to continue the revolution Jesus Christ began 2000 years ago. The Scriptures are more than our textbook; they are our portal into the presence of God, where we not only come to know His mind and heart but also are transformed to become like Him." -- Erwin McManus, "The Church In Emerging Culture" pg.247.

This is what I'm talking about when I speak of being versus doing, what McManus calls changing passions instead of beliefs. The key sentence in the quote is the first sentence of the second paragraph, and why I believe we have nowhere else to turn but away from our institutions, programs and work, and completely back to Christ and our personal and collective identity in Him. To quote Steve Fry, otherwise "we will be forever healing the soul and never aligning the spirit."