Nothing affects the church more than attitude. Someone has said, "It's hard to be a smart cookie with a crummy attitude." I say, “It's hard to lead people to be positive when you see the dark lining in every cloud, the problem in every opportunity and the obstacles on every road.”
– Michael Catt

Attitude

How will I ever know God is my hiding place until I am being pursued by an enemy? How will I ever know God as my portion, unless I feel threatened? How will I ever know God has my Father unless I have felt abandoned? How will I ever know God as my deliverer, unless I am willing to step out of the boat by faith? – Michael Catt

Adversity

Great sermons take place when flint strikes steel. When the flint of a person’s problem strikes the steel of the Word of God, you get a spark, and the spark with burn. Some sermons are too “flinty”: they’re all problem and not much Scripture. Others are all steel and no flint: they are strong on the Bible but stop short of challenging people’s lives. What we want is some combination of the eternal Word of God striking people where they live. Preachers who can do that have a better chance of reaching the audience today and in years to come. – Haddon Robinson (in Reformed Worship, June 1996, page 17)

Not a little preaching is much more imposition than exposition. – W. Graham Scroggie (#11, Mar. 4, 1957)

My job is not to try to make the Bible relevant; I show them them how relevant it is. That’s not picking at words. Relevance comes from the text itself. In the final analysis, “Thus says the Lord” speaks for itself.

One of my mentors used to say two things that I still remember to this day: You haven’t given the gospel until you’ve given people something to believe, and you haven’t truly preached Christ until you have mentioned by name the cross of Christ. That’s convicting. – Charles Swindoll

O sirs, how plainly, how closely, how earnestly, should we deliver a message of such moment as ours, when the everlasting life or everlasting death of our fellow-men is involved in it! …there [is] nothing more unsuitable to such a business, than to be slight and dull. What! Speak coldly for God, and for men’s salvation? Can we believe that our people must be converted or condemned, and yet speak in a drowsy tone? In the name of God, brethren, labour to awaken your own hearts, before you go to the pulpit, that you may be fit to awaken the hearts of sinners…Oh, speak not one cold or careless word about so great a business as heaven or hell. Whatever you do, let the people see that you are in good earnest…A sermon full of mere words, how neatly soever it be composed, while it wants the light of evidence, and the life of zeal, is but an image or a well-dressed carcass. – Richard Baxter in The Reformed Pastor (1656); abridged edition (1829).

The foolishness of preaching has been replaced by the fine art of telling funny stories. The compulsion to soul-winning has been replaced by the compulsion to promote denominational programs. Means and methods may stand in direct opposition to God’s will and way. Let us not revert to nonspiritual means to carry out God’s will. – Donald Wilton, evangelist and professor of preaching, New Orleans Seminary

To be always relevant, you have to say things which are eternal. – Simone Weil

Psychologists tell us that all people perceive change as loss. Preachers are asking people to change their attitudes, their lifestyle, and how they spend their money. One of the first questions people ask is, “What will I lose as a result of this change?” – Bruce Larson

It has been said that good expository preaching contains three elements: explanation, illustration, and application. It has also been said that this preaching appeals to three areas: the intellect, emotions, and will. 1 Thessalonians 2:11 sums these elements as follows: “As ye know how we exhorted (intellect) and comforted (emotions) and charged (will) every one of you,…” Does anyone have any further thoughts on these concepts? – Calvin Miller

Each time I go into the pulpit I go as if it were my first time, as if it could be my best time and as if it might be my last time. – Vance Havner

If you don’t have a reference point, there is no use talking. My reference point is the Bible. Be open minded. The Bible doesn’t argue the existence of God, it proves the existence of God. – Billy Graham

I’ve heard a lot of sermons in the past 10 years or so that make me want to get up and walk out. They’re secular, psychological, self-help sermons. Friendly, but of no use. They didn’t make you straighten up. They didn’t give you anything hard…At some point and in some way, a sermon has to direct people toward the death of Christ and the campaign that God has waged over the centuries to get our attention. – Garrison Keillor

Preaching

When a man prepares expository sermons, God prepares the man. Ultimately God is more interested in developing messengers than messages, and since the Holy Spirit confronts man primarily through the Bible, a preacher must learn to listen to God before he speaks for Him. – Haddon Robinson, quoted in Voice, Nov/Dec 1997, pg. 26

Poets are caretakers of language, the shepherds of words, keeping them from harm, exploitation, misuse. Words not only mean something; they are something, each with a sound and rhythm all its own… I also am in the word business. I preach, I teach, I counsel using words. People often pay particular attention on the chance that God may be using my words to speak to them. I have a responsibility to use words accurately and well. But it isn’t easy. I live in a world where words are used carelessly by some, cunningly by others. – Eugene H. Peterson, in Living the Message

The test of a preacher is that his congregation goes away saying, not “What a lovely sermon!” but “I will do something.” – Francis de Sales

Preach not because you have to say something, but because you have something to say. – Apophthegms

Ministers know they can get a lot of preaching done if they are content to thunder vagaries. If Jesus had only mentioned the traditions of men without getting into the particulars, He would not have generated the hostility He did. – Doug Wilson, (in Tabletalk, Jul 1997, pg. 59)

When the counselor prepares himself for speaking, let him bear in mind with what diligent caution he ought to speak, lest, if he is too hurried in speaking, the hearts of hearers be struck with the wound of error. – Gregory the Great

One of the proofs of the divinity of our gospel is that it has survived the preaching. – Woodrow Wilson

We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports, or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise, but an ultimatum. – A. W. Tozer, quoted in PrayerNet Newsletter, Feb. 21, 1997

People come to church to have confirmed what they think they already know. It is almost impossible, therefore, to resist making the sermon serve to confirm our experience rather than to challenge the presumption that we even understand what it is we assume we have experienced. – Stanley Hauerwas (quoted in Clergy Journal, Nov/Dec 1996, pg. 18)

A preacher joked that he had learned to preach by practicing in jails and nursing homes: “In one they can’t leave, and in the other they can’t hear!” – Ray Jones, San Antonio, Texas

Let’s stop wasting pulpit time with pop psychology and after-dinner pep talks! I don’t insist that all sermons be expository (though I expect it in heaven), but at least let them have biblical and theological content. Most parishioners will get just about all their doctrinal teaching in church. Religious publishing may be doing well, but tapes, CDs, and light devotional reading keep their cash registers ringing, not commentaries and doctrinal studies. We’ve got to learn from the pulpit. – Howard Cogswell (Wesleya Advocate, Nov. 1996, pg. 23)

If only we could realize that our purpose [as pastors] is to be caretakers. We are responsible for leading our flock to the place where the grass is green, but it is up to them to eat! We cannot be responsible for how much they digest. We cannot make people mature. – T.D. Jakes (Ministries Today, Nov/Dec 1996, pg. 24).

When a man prepares expository sermons, God prepares the man. Ultimately God is more interested in developing messengers than messages, and since the Holy Spirit confronts man primarily through the Bible, a preacher must learn to listen to God before he speaks for Him. – Haddon Robinson, quoted in Voice, Nov/Dec 1997, pg. 26

Poets are caretakers of language, the shepherds of words, keeping them from harm, exploitation, misuse. Words not only mean something; they are something, each with a sound and rhythm all its own… I also am in the word business. I preach, I teach, I counsel using words. People often pay particular attention on the chance that God may be using my words to speak to them. I have a responsibility to use words accurately and well. But it isn’t easy. I live in a world where words are used carelessly by some, cunningly by others. – Eugene H. Peterson, in Living the Message

The test of a preacher is that his congregation goes away saying, not “What a lovely sermon!” but “I will do something.” – Francis de Sales

Preach not because you have to say something, but because you have something to say. – Apophthegms

Ministers know they can get a lot of preaching done if they are content to thunder vagaries. If Jesus had only mentioned the traditions of men without getting into the particulars, He would not have generated the hostility He did. – Doug Wilson, (in Tabletalk, Jul 1997, pg. 59)

When the counselor prepares himself for speaking, let him bear in mind with what diligent caution he ought to speak, lest, if he is too hurried in speaking, the hearts of hearers be struck with the wound of error. – Gregory the Great

One of the proofs of the divinity of our gospel is that it has survived the preaching. – Woodrow Wilson

We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports, or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise, but an ultimatum. – A. W. Tozer, quoted in PrayerNet Newsletter, Feb. 21, 1997

People come to church to have confirmed what they think they already know. It is almost impossible, therefore, to resist making the sermon serve to confirm our experience rather than to challenge the presumption that we even understand what it is we assume we have experienced. – Stanley Hauerwas (quoted in Clergy Journal, Nov/Dec 1996, pg. 18)

A preacher joked that he had learned to preach by practicing in jails and nursing homes: “In one they can’t leave, and in the other they can’t hear!” – Ray Jones, San Antonio, Texas

Let’s stop wasting pulpit time with pop psychology and after-dinner pep talks! I don’t insist that all sermons be expository (though I expect it in heaven), but at least let them have biblical and theological content. Most parishioners will get just about all their doctrinal teaching in church. Religious publishing may be doing well, but tapes, CDs, and light devotional reading keep their cash registers ringing, not commentaries and doctrinal studies. We’ve got to learn from the pulpit. – Howard Cogswell (Wesleya Advocate, Nov. 1996, pg. 23)

If only we could realize that our purpose [as pastors] is to be caretakers. We are responsible for leading our flock to the place where the grass is green, but it is up to them to eat! We cannot be responsible for how much they digest. We cannot make people mature. – T.D. Jakes (Ministries Today, Nov/Dec 1996, pg. 24).

Preaching

"The greatest Christian revolutions come not be the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen when somebody takes radically something that was always there." – Philip Yancey

Radical Christianity

"The effective prayer of faith comes from a life given up to the will and the love of God. Not as a result of what I try to be when praying, but because of what I am when I’m not praying, is my prayer answered by God." – Andrew Murray in With Christ in the School of Prayer

"Many “sophisticated” political and social commentators complain that issues like school prayer are “distractions” having nothing to do with today’s most pressing issues. What they fail to recognize is that a people’s faith is intertwined with the issues of the day." – William J. Bennett, former secretary of education, in The De-Valuing of America

"I am often, I believe, praying for others when I should be doing things for them. It’s so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see him. – C. S. Lewis in Letters to Malcolm

Peter Marshall prayed, “Forgive us for thinking that prayer is a waste of time, and help us to see that without prayer, our work is a waste of time.”

Prayer

"Leadership is - by its very nature - already extreme. Real leaders are already embroiled in extreme acts: they're taking us to places we've never been, turning nothing into something, taking something good and turning it into something great, helping us to grow as human beings and changing the pieces of the world that they touch. Or the whole world, for that matter. The Extreme Leader is, therefore, the only true and authentic leader. But here's the problem: many people who call themselves leaders are only posing. They're wearing the label or accepting the title without putting their skin in the game. Extreme (real) Leadership takes a personal commitment and a significant, personal choice...As Terry Pearce said...in the San Francisco Examiner: 'There are many people who think they want to be matadors, only to find themselves in the ring with two thousand pounds of bull bearing down on them, and then discover that what they really wanted was to wear tight pants and hear the crowd roar.'" - By Steve Farber, Fast Company Weblog, May 3, 2004

Leadership

"The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.” -James M. Barrie, Copyright 2004, INJOY, Leadership Wired Volume 7, Issue 8

“Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.” - Theodore Rubin, Copyright 2004, INJOY, Leadership Wired Volume 7, Issue 8

“Lead the life that will make you kindly and friendly to everyone about you, and you will be surprised what a happy life you will lead.” - Charles M. Schwab, Copyright 2004, INJOY, Leadership Wired Volume 7, Issue 8

"An individual who has no geniality about him had better be an undertaker, and bury the dead, for he will never succeed in influencing the living. I commend cheerfulness to all who would win souls; not levity and frothiness, but a genial, happy spirit. There are more flies caught with honey than with vinegar, and there will be more souls led to heaven by a man who wears heaven in his face than by one who bears death in his looks." – Charles Spurgeon

"Americans find difficulty very hard to take. They are inevitably looking for a happy ending. Perversely, I will not give the happy ending (in my stories). I think life is difficult and that’s that. I am not at all – absolutely not at all – interested in the pursuit of happiness. I am interested in pursuing a truth, and the truth often seems to be not happiness but its opposite." – Jamaica Kincaid (quoted in Utne Reader, Jan/Feb 1998, pg. 41

"If your happiness depends on what somebody else says or does, I guess you do have a problem." – Richard Bach

Happiness

"Prayer is political action. Prayer is social energy. Prayer is public good. Far more of our nation's life is shaped by prayer than is formed by legislation. That we have not collapsed into anarchy is due more to prayer than to the police. That society continues to be livable and that hope continues to be resurgent are attributable to prayer far more than to business prosperity or a flourishing of the arts. The single most important action contributing to whatever health and strength there is in our land is prayer. Not the only thing, of course, for God uses all things to effect His sovereign will, and the 'all things' most certainly includes police and artists, senators and professors, therapists and steelworkers. But prayer is, all the same, the source action." - Eugene Peterson, Living the Message (Harper San Francisco, 1996)

"Compassion lies at the heart of our prayer for our fellow human beings. When I pray for the world, I become the world; when I pray for the endless needs of the millions, my soul expands and wants to embrace them all and bring them into the presence of God. But in the midst of that experience I realize that compassion is not mine but God's gift to me. I cannot embrace the world, but God can. I cannot pray, but God can pray in me. When God became as we are, that is, when God allowed all of us to enter into the intimacy of the divine life, it became possible for us to share in God's infinite compassion." - Henri Nouwen in Seeds of Hope, Christianity Today - March 2, 1998

"The rule in a monastery was not 'Do not speak,' but 'Do not speak unless you can improve on the silence.' Might not the same be said of prayer?" - Anthony de Mello, Taking Flight

"Remember that REPENTANCE is the key... PRAYER is the answer...GOD is the POWER." - Rev. Don Miller, Bible Based Ministries, June 1997

"Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth, but from falling in love." - Richard Foster

"Our growth in prayer may be to us the test of our growth in all other respects. 'Lord, teach us to pray,' is a prayer for the young beginner and for the more advanced disciple; it is a suitable petition for us all, for we have none of us yet learned to the full the sacred art of supplication." - Charles H. Spurgeon in Let It Begin with Me

"Think of the last thing you prayed about - were you devoted to your desire or to God'? Determined to get some gift of the Spirit or to get at God? 'Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.' The point of asking is that you may get to know God better. 'Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.' Keep praying in order to get a perfect understanding of God Himself." - Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest

"Some people think the prayer of faith is crawling out on a limb and then begging God to keep someone from sawing it off. But that is not real prayer, that is presumption. If God makes it clear that he wants you out on a limb, tine - you will be perfectly safe there. If not, it is presumptuous to crawl out on that limb, expecting God to keep you there." - Ray C. Stedman in Man of Faith

"Prayer pulls the rope below and the great bell rings above in the ears of God, Some scarcely stir the bell, for they pray so languidly. Others give but an occasional pluck at the rope. But he who wins with heaven is the man who grasps the rope boldly and pulls continuously, with all his might." - Charles H. Spurgeon in The Quotable Spurgeon

"We all tend to prescribe the answers to our prayers. We think that God can come in only one way. But Scripture teaches us that God sometimes answers our prayers by allowing things to become much worse before they become better. He may sometimes do the opposite of what we anticipate...yet it is a fundamental principle in the life and walk of faith that we must always be prepared for the unexpected when we are dealing with God." - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in Faith: Tried and Triumphant

"In times when you are sad and troubled, do not give up the good works of prayer and penance which you have been in the habit of doing. For the devil will try to persuade you to abandon them, and unsettle you. Rather, practice them more than before, and you will see how quickly the Lord will come to your aid." - Theresa of Avila in A Life of Prayer

"Prayer is the plumb line that finds its rest in the place where our hearts beat in rhythm with the heart of God. Scripture is the weight that propels the plumb line's fall." - Wendy M. Wright in Weavings (July/Aug 1996)

"I have learned that God's silence to my questions is not a door slammed in my face. I may not have answers. But I do have Him." - Dave Dravecky in When You Can't Come Back

"Our lives must be as holy as our prayers. Our prayers are to prove their reality by the fruit they bear in the holiness of our life. True devotion in prayer will assuredly be rewarded, by God's grace, with the power to live a life of true devotion to Him and His service." - Andrew Murray in Aids to Devotion

"When we pray for ourselves, our petitions usually center around what we think we need or what we are sure so and so needs. God sees needs in our lives that are far more urgent than those we have written on our heavenly supermarket list and daily present to our 'Need-Meeter' in the sky. Our need for changed attitudes, a new acceptance of someone we have been rejecting, our need to be 'cut down to size' - these are not things we pray for too readily. On the other hand, we do find we can pray these things for other people!" - Jill Briscoe in Before You Say 'Amen'

"No one can believe how powerful prayer is and what it can effect, except those who have learned it by experience. It is important when we have a need to go to God in prayer. I know, whenever I have prayed earnestly, that I have been heard and have obtained more than I prayed for. God sometimes delays, but He always comes." - Martin Luther

"What a man is on his knees before God, that he is - and nothing more." - Robert Murray McCheyne

"You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed." - Charles Swindoll

"If God answered all our petitions we might find the response to our desires tragic." - Source unknown

"Some things are proved by the unbroken uniformity of our experiences. The law of gravitation is established by the fact that, in our experience, all bodies without exception obey it. Now even if all the things that people prayed for happened, which they do not, this would not prove what Christians mean by the efficacy of prayer. For prayer is request. The essence of request, as distinct from compulsion, is that it may or may not be granted." - C. S. Lewis in The World's Last Night

"The trouble with nearly everybody who prays is that he says 'Amen' and runs away before God has a chance to reply. Listening to God is far more important than giving Him your ideas." - Frank Laubach in Frank C. Laubach, Teacher of Millions

Prayer

"We need more transparency in the church, not fear of it. It's difficult for men and women alike to be transparent in an evangelical church. You put something on the prayer chain, and you never know when your next door neighbor is going to be talking about it." - Mary Stuart Van Leeuwen, interviewed in The Door (Jan-Feb 1992)

"How can you expect to keep your powers of hearing when you never want to listen? That God should have time for you, you seem to take as much for granted as that you cannot have time for Him." - Dag Hammerskjold in Markings

"Heaven is full of answers to prayers for which no one ever bothered to ask." - Billy Graham, quoted in Encounter Weekly online

"When life knocks you to your knees - well, that's the best position in which to pray, isn't it?"- Ethel Barrymore

"No Christian rises higher than his praying." - Source unknown

"To substitute other forces for prayer, retires God and materializes the whole movement." - E. M. Bounds

"What seem our worst prayers, those least supported by devotional feeling, may really be, in God's eyes, our best." - C.S. Lewis, Leadership 1991

"If God has left some things contingent on man's thinking and working why may he not have left some things contingent on man's praying? The testimony of the great souls is a clear affirmative to this: some things never without thinking; some things never without working; some things never without praying! Prayer is one of the three forms of man's cooperation with God." - Harry Emerson Fosdick in The Meaning of Prayer

Prayer

"Hem your blessings with praise lest they unravel." - Source unknown

"Gratitude is the interest we owe God for the life He has loaned us." - Source unknown

"We must, during all our labour and in all else we do, even in our reading and writing, holy though both may be --I say more, during our formal devotions and spoken prayers --pause for some short moment, as often indeed as we can, to worship God in the depth of our heart, to savour him, though it be but in passing, and as it were by stealth. Since you are not unaware that God is present before you whatever you are doing, that He is at the depth and centre of your soul, why not then pause from time to time at least from that which occupies you outwardly, even from your spoken prayers, to worship him inwardly, to praise him, petition him, to offer him your heart and thank him? What can God have that gives him greater satisfaction than that a thousand times a day all his creatures should thus pause to withdraw and worship him in the heart." - Brother Lawrence in The Practice of the Presence of God (tr. E. M. Blaiklock)

"Authentic praise of God acknowledges what is true about God: it responds to qualities that are 'there' and not simply 'there for me'... In other words, God is to be praised because God is God, because of what God is and does, quite apart from what God is and does for me. Anyone can, and should, praise God when the Lord blesses one and keeps one...Gratitude is indeed often expressed as praise, and rightly. But that does not make praise and gratitude identical. Or does God cease to be praiseworthy when gratitude has fled because the Lord seems to withhold blessings, when the divine face appears to be set against us, and when agony drives out peace?" - Leander E. Keck in the Christian Century (Dec. 16,1992)

"Has praise become the new darling of the church -- something to busy ourselves with while skirting other more demanding calls of God? Is it now 'praise' instead of 'love' that covers over a multitude of sins? Is it now faith, hope, and love that remain, but the greatest of these is praise? It does appear sometimes that no matter what we are doing wrong, praise will somehow make it right... Praise is important, but not something to make such a big deal about when everything else God created is already engaged in the moment by moment expression of this...as a natural course of events... When we admonish people to praise, don't tell them what they'll get out of it, or what God will get out of it. Tell them to praise Him simply because it is right and reasonable to do so. To attach anything more to this is to presume undue importance upon ourselves." - John Fischer in Contemporary Christian Music (Dec. 1994)

Praise

"The human scene is crowded with the people who have gone as far as they're going simply because their goals aren't high enough." - Paul J. Meyer

"Whether life is rough or smooth, ambition we must have, or die at the hands of our own laziness." - A.P. Gouthey

"To do something, however small, to make others happier and better, is the highest ambition, the most elevating hope, that can inspire a human being." - John Lubbock

"Children, you must remember something. A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessing here on earth is ever so alive. Having been alive, it won't be hard in the end to lie down and rest." - Pearl Bailey

"You must have long-range goals to keep from being frustrated by short-term failures." - Charles N. Noble

"Let your heart soar as high as it will. Refuse to be average." - A.W. Tozer

"If you always do what you have always done, you will always be where you have always been." - Source unknown

"If God by your partner, make your plans large." - Dwight Moody

"Make no little plans. They have no power to stir men's blood and probably in themselves will not be realized. Make BIG plans in the hope that they will live through the ages and become a thing of living, burning intensity. - Daniel Burnham, architect and city planner, who is responsible for many of the features of Chicago today"

"Most failures in the church come about because of an ambiguity of purpose than for any other reason." - Howard Hendricks

"Our task is not to bring order out of chaos, but to get work done in the midst of chaos." - George Peabody

"Remember, even if you are on the right track you'll get run over if you just sit there. "- Will Rogers

"Seventeenth-century spiritual writer Francois Fenelon said, 'When it comes to accomplishing things for God, you will find that high aspirations, enthusiastic feelings, careful planning, and being able to express yourself well are not worth very much. The important thing is absolute surrender to God. You can do anything he wants you to do if you are walking in the light of full surrender.'" - Matt Woodley, Pastor of Cambridge, MN, United Methodist Church, Leadership, Winter 1997

"Not failure, but low aim, is a crime." - Lowell

"If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." - Chuck Swindoll

"If you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time." - Chuck Swindoll

Goal Setting