Get Started

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one." ~ Mark Twain

Make Disciples

"If you make disciples, you always get the church. But if you make a church, you rarely get disciples." ~ Mike Breen

Great Tragedy of the Church

"The great tragedy of the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor." ~ Shane Claiborne

Forgive the Wounds

"Only reckless confidence in a Source greater than ourselves can empower us to forgive the wounds inflicted by others." ~ Brennan Manning

You Choose

"The choice before us is: Do we only give glory to God for the part of our lives that's going the way we want? Or do we worship Him, trust Him, and GIVE HIM THANKS, just because He is God—regardless of the painful, incomprehensible places we encounter in our journey?" ~ Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Disguised...

"We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations." ~ Charles Swindoll

Everything Is a Gift

"Everything is gift. The degree to which we are awake to this truth is the measure of our gratefulness. And gratefulness is the measure of our aliveness. Are we not dead to whatever we take for granted? Surely to be numb is to be dead." ~ David Steindl-Rast

Rise Above...

"Leaders must be able to rise above controversies, jealousies, petty personal attacks, and ego slights, real or imagined, in order to accomplish anything of worth." ~ Laurie Beth Jones

The Beginning

"Spirit of God, I thank Thee that Thou art the answer to all my questions and the end of all my quests. And yet Thou art, not the end, but just the beginning. For now having Thee, I am ready for all. Amen." ~ E. Stanley Jones

Hold Nothing Back

"True faith means holding nothing back; it bets everything on the hope of eternity." ~ FrancisChan (Relentless God)

Enough for this Day

"When we breathe, we do not stop inhaling because we have taken in all the oxygen we will ever need, but because we have all the oxygen we need for this breath. Then we exhale, release carbon dioxide, and make room for more oxygen. Sabbath, like the breath, allows us to imagine we have done enough work for this day. Do not be anxious about tomorrow, Jesus said again and again. Let the work of this day be sufficient." ~ Wayne Muller (Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest)

Time of Prayer

"There must be no day without that time of prayer which brings eternity near to time, and which brings God into the human situation." ~ William Barclay

What Are You Known For?

"If there’s anything we Christians should be known for, it’s joy. We have the confidence that God is still on His throne; God is in control." ~ Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Seeking Approval

"God passionately loves our true selves—so we have to seek approval of our false selves elsewhere. Being somebody, having something or getting somewhere is a multi-billion dollar business in America. Take note of the ads; they all are hawking social approval." ~ David Buttrick (The Mystery and the Passion)

Keep Praying

"Keep praying…we are down but not out."

Words painted on the only standing wall of what used to be a home in one of the communities struck by Typhoon Haiyan

Live Deliberately

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." ~ Henry David Thoreau

Cosmic Change

"Cosmic change is not cosmetic change. It is radical, meaning ‘to the root,’ and it will mean the upheaval of our cherished customs and the disposal of stories that have provided the basic framework for our lives. We must not underestimate the enormity of what is being asked of us, even as we celebrate with joy the new and salvific. In its initial moments resurrection is indistinguishable from death. At first we are unable to see the great turning that has taken place. All that has been comfortable, all that has held us in place is gone, and there is nothing recognizable to stand on. Everything on which we have planted our feet is swept away." ~ Judy Cannato (Field of Compassion)

Giving...

“Giving affirms Christ’s lordship. It dethrones me and exalts Him.” ~ Randy Alcorn

Love Them All

"The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people." ~ G.K. Chesterton

Families Hurt and Families Heal

"It is in families we are broken and it is in families that we are healed." ~ Carl Whittaker

Generosity

"Biblical generosity isn't about giving the minimum. It's about surrendering it all." ~ Larry Poole

Confession of Faith

"If I find my faith becoming dim and my experience vague and indefinite, I am generally brought back into clearness and definiteness by making a confession of my faith to someone; or, if no one is at hand, by making it aloud to my Heavenly Father." ~ Hannah Whitall Smith

Let God Choose

"If God chooses to have my children become CEOs or to become missionaries, then He will see it through. My job is to seek Him. Obey Him. His plans will unfold for my children, and those plans may be very different from my dreams for them. Ultimately I have to let my children be the person that God called them to be. Not who I want them to be. Not to be like the person down the street. But to be the person that God calls them to be." ~ Karen DeBeus (Called Home: Finding Joy in Letting God Lead Your Homeschool)

Inspire Others

"A leader is one who inspires others to be leaders, especially those on the margins of church and society who do not think they are ‘somebody.’" ~ Letty M. Russell

The Root of All Sin

"P. T. Forsyth once said, 'The worst sin is prayerlessness.' ...the root of all sin is self-sufficiency—independence from God. When we fail to wait prayerfully for God's guidance and strength we are saying, with our actions if not our lips, we do not need Him." ~ Charles Hummel (The Tyranny of the Urgent)

Your Effect

"What effect do you have on the people you hang out with? Do they want to be more and better, to live selfless and sacrificially, because they were with you? Do they desire to be more Christian, or less, by your presence?" ~ Hamilton

Costs Everything

"Salvation is free, but discipleship costs everything we have." ~ Billy Graham

Don't Cling...

"We forget that the world is passing away. This is not our home. We must detach ourselves. Don't cling so tightly." ~ Lisa Chan (Not of This World)

A Soldier's Pledge

"America must win this war. Therefore I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone." ~ Private Martin Treptow (fallen WWI hero)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=396j-LFFYCM

Welcome the Stranger

"Welcoming the stranger puts oneself and one’s community at risk. At best, the stranger is disruptive, bringing strange ideas and new, even wrong, ways of doing things. At worst, the stranger is dangerous, bringing disease, dishonor or violence. Welcoming the stranger is risky: everyone will be changed, host and guest alike…. And we cannot know ahead of time what the changes will be."
~ Amy Oden

Mentoring

"Becoming a mentor has got to be something that comes up within you—it’s got to be God’s work. It can’t be our work because we’ll give answers that aren’t God’s answers." ~ Patty Webb

No Match for God

"There is no bondage, no power, no force, no evil, no pressure, no problem that is any match for God." ~ Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Man Is At His Greatest When...

"Prayer is beyond any question the highest activity of the human soul. Man is at his greatest and highest when upon his knees he comes face to face with God." ~ Martin Lloyd Jones

Stop Giving Excuses...

"We need to stop giving people excuses not to believe in God. You've probably heard the expression 'I believe in God, just not organized religion.' I don't think people would say that if the Church truly lived like we are called to live." ~ Francis Chan

Go to Extremes

"I believe God wants us to love others so much that we go to extremes to help them." ~ Francis Chan (Crazy Love)

Build the Team

"Building the team is as important as producing the product." ~ Bob Taylor

Broken & Humbled

"Our broken and humbled hearts have to motivate us to do whatever we can to alleviate the pain and the suffering we see around us." ~ Hohman

For Those Who Walked With Us

"For those
who walked with us
this is a prayer.
For those
who have gone ahead,
this is a blessing.
For those
who touched and tended us,
who lingered with us
while they lived,
this is a thanksgiving.
For those
who journey still with us
in the shadows of awareness,
in the crevices of memory,
in the landscape of our dreams,
this is a benediction."

~ Jan Richardson

The Really Real

"The Kingdom is the Really Real. When the Really Real happens, when the true self emerges, you have a taste of what Jesus says it’s all about. When that can happen in terms of structures or groups, when you have a free group of people who love the truth more than themselves, then you have a taste of the Kingdom descending to earth." ~ Richard Rohr

Build a New Reality

"You never change things by fighting existing reality. To change something, build a new reality that makes the existing reality obsolete." ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

Your Problems

"Your problems are not just your problems. Ultimately, they belong to the church body that God has placed you in." ~ Francis Chan & Mark Beuving (Multiply)

Total Surrender

"You’re not just responsible for yourself at church. Younger people need your consistent example. Older people need your compassionate understanding. Pastors need your supportive encouragement. God needs your total surrender." ~ C. Jean

Surrender

"Holiness is inwrought by the Holy Spirit, not because we have suffered, but because we have surrendered." ~ Richard Shelley Taylor

Deeper, Deeper Beyond the Fun and Games

"Thank You for the privilege of Christian fellowship—and of eating together to foster relationships in the Body of Christ. But help us, Lord, to go much deeper. Take us out of the rut through following hard after You, not through surface attempts. Amen." ~ A.W. Tozer

Christian Spirituality

"Christian spirituality means eating together, sharing together, drinking together, talking with each other, receiving each other, experiencing God’s presence through each other, and in doing so, proclaiming the gospel as God’s alternative vision for everyone." ~ Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza

Power in Prayer

"Prayer is just the breathing of the Spirit in us; power in prayer comes from the power of the Spirit in us, waited on and trusted in." ~ Andrew Murray