Jo Bell Quotes

Every generation has to ask difficult questions about what does it mean to follow Jesus.

For a lot of people in our world today, God has become about believing the right stuff so you don't get in trouble.

Celebrity seems totally at odds with authentic community and honest, real sorts of relationships.

I believe God gives people the right to say no, to resist, to refuse, to reject, to cling to their sins, to cling to their version of their story.

Many people confuse religion with God and walk away from them both. The point isn't Christianity, the point is being a Christian.

Swords appear strong, but they're actually quite weak. Jesus appears weak, but he's actually quite strong.

God has spoken, and everything else is commentary.

Love frees us to embrace all of our history, the history in which all things are being made new.

I'm very comfortable in a room with thousands of people.

To elevate abstract doctrines and dogmas over living, breathing, embodied experiences of God's love and grace, then, is going the wrong direction. It's taking flesh and turning it back into words.

My parents were both very intellectually honest, straightforward, and for them, faith meant that you were fully engaged.

It's as if Thomas Kinkade and Dante were at a party, and one turned to the other sometime after midnight and uttered that classic line "You know, we really should work together sometime.

We shape our God, and then our God shapes us.

The danger is that in reaction to abuses and distortions of an idea, we'll reject it completely. And in the process miss out on the good of it, the worth of it, the truth of it.

Christian' makes a poor adjective

When someone sets out to be controversial or provocative or shocking as an end in itself, I don't think that's a noble goal.

Enjoy mystery and speculation, but don't drift into dogma.

Faith can take many different forms and expressions.

People received, affirmed and experienced grace in many different forms.

Something is profoundly wrong and we are desperate for justice, for restoration and for somebody somewhere to do something about this.

To me some of the greatest writing is when somebody puts something in words that you felt and experienced and you go, that's it.

There are moments when we have to return to our roots.

I get ideas about things I want to make and then I throw myself into it with everything I have.

My interest is in what's true, where is the life, where is the heart and what inspires.

Many in the modern world fell for the myth that we're living in a static, fixed, flat reality of just material things.

The hardness of the human heart makes no sense.

God gives us what we want. For people who want nothing to do with peace, joy, reconciliation and peace... God will give you what you want. I see people make unbelievably destructive choices.

The resurrection confronts our world with wonder, mystery, and miracles.

Sociologically, large groups of people don't generally have massive changes in their belief instantaneously.

I think that grace and love always rattle people.

The joy is in the creation. So I've never had a target audience, it's always been about being true to the work as it emerges.

I actually think there is hell because we see hell every day.

People have a view of a God who is terrible that they can't even imagine being loving or wanting anything to do with.

Your life is a gift. Before anything else can be said about you, for some reason the universe (or God, or being, or force, or reality, or whatever you name it) chose to give you life.

We all want to make a difference, to live in peace, to have joy each morning that we get to live this day and see what it brings.

I thought that Christian was a noun, a person looking for authenticity. I never understood that idea that a band could be Christian or something could be Christian. But it just can be and is.

What's interesting is, if you take the scientists and the theologians, the really good ones, they end up both filled with this wide-eyed sense of wonder and awe about look at this world we live in.

You can be living in a big house, driving a nice car, going on exotic vacations and still be empty inside, crippled with fear and dread.

Typically, a book takes me about a year to write.

I like to sit down every day and not know where the book is going. I have no idea where the book is going to go or how it's going to end as I'm writing it.

Halloween is fun, but it wasnt always my favorite holiday. I think Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

I was raised on Westerns. They were part of what going into the movies was.

Saw fans are manic, when it comes to details, so they're going to say, "Wait a minute! Why is that like that? It wasn't like that before." And, they're right.

'Saw' is a particularly popular film with 14-30 year olds, so I'll be at a playground and meet six or 10 skateboarders who just wanna talk about 'Saw.'

Anything that exists on the human palette is, from my point of view, fair game for artists to portray. You don't have to go see it if you don't want to, so don't go.

Horror fans are very passionate people, and they are very much into the 'Saw' thing. So they watch sometimes as carefully as the writers and producers do, in terms of the way the story plays out.

There's the moment in 'Saw' where I get up off of the floor at the end. That was shocking, because no one expects it. I thought they did that really, really well.

There are a lot of considerations that come into play when you craft one of these 'Saw' scripts, and there's only so much you can put into them.

'Buried Alive' is a little scary, but also a comedy at the same time.

My goal is to forever do stand up.