This excerpt from Tozer made my heart burn as I read it today. Lord, may MainStreet become a church that makes disciples such as these! -JB “Then Paul answered, “What do you mean by weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die at Jerusalem for … More QUOTABLES: Tozer on Bold Leadership
“What must our Lord think of us if His work and His witness depend upon the convenience of His people? The truth is that every advance that we make for God and for His cause must be made at our inconvenience. If it does not inconvenience us at all, there is no cross in it! … More QUOTABLES: A.W. Tozer on Leadership
“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough … More QUOTABLES: G.K. Chesterton on “Exulting in Monotony”
“If you want to build a ship, don’t summon people to buy wood, prepare tools, distribute jobs, and organize the work, rather teach people the yearning for the wide, boundless ocean.” -Antoine de Saint-Exupery “Church planting is like trying to build a ship while you’re already at sea.” -Unknown
“To read the Bible properly is to find it an altar where one meets the living God . . .” -Evangelical Covenant Church Paper
“People are like stained glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within.” -Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Swiss-American psychiatrist and author
All sin is spiritual garbage, and necessarily meets its end in destruction. God can’t let garbage into heaven. Only if the “sinner” won’t let go of his garbage does he get burned with it. God offers to take the garbage off his back, to separate the “sinner” from the sin so that the sinner is … More QUOTABLES: Peter Kreeft
LORD God you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us through JESUS CHRIST our … More QUOTABLES: Anonymous Prayer
“When the wanderer stands by the little hidden spring in the woods and observes how the newborn brook searches its way between moss and heather, it is difficult to understand that this is the beginning of a mighty river that a few hundred miles farther on plunges down into deep gorges and finally flings itself … More QUOTABLES: E.A. Skogsbergh on Small Beginnings
Statement made during assembly of evangelical pastors in 1877 pleading for a union of evangelical believers based on scripture alone without regard to human creeds or confessions: Let us in this matter be followers of Jesus and not split into different denominations and factions; we have the same Savior. Rather may all those who are … More QUOTABLES: P.P. Waldenstrom
You have heard the quote, “There’s a God-shaped void in every heart that only God can fill,” and it is attributed to Blaise Pascal. In fact, that is only a paraphrase of what he actually said. Here’s the quote it must come from: What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there … More QUOTABLES: Blaise Pascal
“Let’s face reality: There are no programmatic shortcuts to effective disciplemaking. There is no “easy button”. Disciplemaking is about relationships. Relationships are inefficient. Disciplemaking is about life change. Life change is messy. Disciplemaking is centered in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ allows no pretense. Disciplemaking is unpredictable. Unpredictability requires risk. Disciplemaking is unique … More QUOTABLES: On Making Disciples
The disciples wanted a kingdom without a cross. Many would-be “orthodox” or “conservative” Christians in our world have wanted a cross without a kingdom, an abstract “atonement” that would have nothing to do with this world except to provide the means of escaping it. Many too have wanted a “divine” Jesus as a kind of … More QUOTABLES: N.T. Wright on the Jesus we want
“In theology, mind and heart – study and prayer – are both important. With the mind we analyze data, while in the heart we wait for illumination on it. We place the truths discovered in God’s Word into the sanctuary of the soul for pondering. The mind attends to analysis; the heart dreams and listens … More QUOTABLES: Clark Pinnock
“At first a man engages in some forbidden pleasure because he wants to do so; in the end he engages in it because he cannot help doing so. Once a thing becomes a habit it is not far from being a necessity. When a man has allowed some habit, some indulgence, some forbidden practice to … More QUOTABLES: The Murderous Power of Sin (Barclay)
“Ten years ago the USA had Steve Jobs, Bob Hope, and Johnny Cash. Now they have no Jobs, no Hope, and no Cash.”
“Christ is the head; the Church is the body. The head must have a body through which it can work. The Church is quite literally hands to do Christ’s work, feet to run upon his errands, a voice to speak his words. . . . Just a the ideas of the mind cannot become effective … More QUOTABLES: Barclay on the Church’s Tremendous Task
“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” -John Wesley
“We are like blocks of stone, out of which the sculptor carves the forms of men. The blows of his chisel, which hurt us so much, are what make us perfect….What I am trying to say is that the pain one endures from losing their beloved, is part of the happiness they shared while together.” … More QUOTABLES: William Nicholson, “Shadowlands”
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as … More QUOTABLES: No Ordinary People (C.S. Lewis)
God loves reluctant leaders and, even better, he loves reluctant leaders who know they are frightened, confused, and broken. In fact, he seems to have a special fondness for rebels and fools. Does God choose troubled leaders because few other people are foolish enough to say yes, or does he choose weak, troubled people because … More QUOTABLES: Dan Allender & the Reluctant Leader
“Whenever a people are bound together in loyalty to a story that includes something as strange as the Sermon on the Mount, we are put at odds with the world.” – From Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony by Hauerwas & Willimon
“Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook – even … More Timeless Wisdom from C.S. Lewis
“In the beginning the church was a fellowship of men and women centered on the living Christ. Then the church move to Greece, where it became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome, where it became and institution. Next, it moved to Europe, where it became a culture. And, finally, it moved to America, where … More QUOTABLES: On Consumer Christianity
I’m reading the great biography of Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas. It’s very long and filled with wonderful quotes from Bonhoffer’s writings and letters. But the following quote rises above them all, one that so resonates with my own passion and convictions that I told Keri last night, “This would be a quote I would like … More QUOTABLES: Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Kingdom Harbor 