Greg Boyle Quotes

“A new sense of ‘church’ had emerged, open and inclusive, replacing the hermetically sealed model that had kept the ‘good folks’ in and the ‘bad folks’ out.”

“Homeboy Industries can only hire and help a finite number of gang members. Though thousands have found assistance, it remains a tiny drop in a pretty deep bucket.”

“Our image of who God is and what’s on God’s mind is more tiny than it is troubled. It trips more on our puny sense of God than over conflicting creedal statements or theological considerations.”

“There is a longing in us all to be God-enthralled.”

“All throughout Scripture and history, the principal suffering of the poor is not that they can’t pay their rent on time or that they are three dollars short of a package of Pampers . . . The principal suffering of the poor is shame and disgrace.”

“To love the enemy and to find some spaciousness for the victimizer, as well as the victim, resembles more the expansive compassion of God.”

“You will not clean this up. If there are people in our community who are disparaged and hated and left out because they are mojados (wetbacks) . . . Then we shall be proud to call ourselves a wetback church.”

“Tonight, you taught me that no amount of my wanting you to have a life is the same as you wanting to have one. Now, I can help you get a life—I just can’t give you the desire to want one. So, when you want a life, call me.”

“We seek to create loving communities of kinship precisely to counteract mounting lovelessness, racism, and the cultural disparagement that keeps us apart.”

“Alone, they didn’t have much, but together, they had a potful of plenty.”

“We are not called to be successful, but faithful.”

“She saw that you are somebody. She recognized you . . . as the shape of God’s heart. Sometimes people cry when they see that.”

“The strategy of Jesus is not centered in taking the right stand on issues, but rather in standing in the right place.”

“Here is what we seek: a compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it.”

“Divine love is incessantly restless until it turns all woundedness into health, all deformity into beauty and all embarrassment into laughter.”

“We’re all created equal, but we don’t all end up equal.”

“This longing of God’s to give us peace and assurance and a sense of well-being only awaits our willingness to cooperate with God’s limitless magnanimity.”

“Resilience is born by grounding yourself in your own loveliness, hitting notes you thought were way out of your range.”

“The desire of God’s heart is immeasurably larger than our imaginations can conjure.”

“Guilt, of course, is feeling bad about one’s actions, but shame is feeling bad about oneself.”