# The Shaping of Things to Come

## Metadata
- Author: [[Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch]]
- Full Title: The Shaping of Things to Come
- Category: #books
## Highlights
- In this book expect to encounter revolutionary ideas that will sometimes unnerve you. We hope to reawaken the latent apostolic imagination at the heart of the biblical faith and to exhort God’s people to courageous missional engagement for our time—living out the gospel within its cultural context rather than perpetuating an institutional commitment apart from its cultural context. In writing this book we are advocating a wholesale change in the way Christians are doing and being the church, and because of this ours is not necessarily a popular message. ([Location 162](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AHY0W2K&location=162))
- There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more difficult to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who would profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new. —Machiavelli ([Location 172](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AHY0W2K&location=172))
- According to participants at this postmodern festival, six key elements make up the Burning Man experience. ([Location 192](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AHY0W2K&location=192))
- Belonging: ([Location 193](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AHY0W2K&location=193))
- In a society that has been fractured by economic rationalism, globalization, racial disunity, ideological differences, fear, and violence, the Burning Man community claims to offer solace, welcome, and acceptance. ([Location 198](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AHY0W2K&location=198))
- Survival: ([Location 199](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AHY0W2K&location=199))
- With all the comforts of home stripped away, participants have no choice but to look deep within themselves, to discover who they truly are, and to summon up from within themselves the will and the power to survive—both in the desert and after they return to the world outside. ([Location 201](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AHY0W2K&location=201))
- Empowerment: ([Location 203](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AHY0W2K&location=203))
- Sensuality: ([Location 209](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AHY0W2K&location=209))
- Celebration: ([Location 212](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AHY0W2K&location=212))
- Liminality: ([Location 218](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AHY0W2K&location=218))
- The word liminal from the Latin limen (threshold) signifies an in-between time. ([Location 218](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AHY0W2K&location=218))
- We, the authors, take the view that the transformative power of the gospel of Jesus Christ is greater than anything offered at Black Rock. But we are realistic enough to admit that unless the church recovers its role as a subversive, missionary movement, no one who has been to Burning Man will be the least bit interested in it. ([Location 231](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AHY0W2K&location=231))