Quotes from Andy Stanley

The key to this approach is refusing to stand up and speak until you know the answer to two questions: •  What is the one thing I want my audience to know? •  What do I want them to do about it?

Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

When our faith is down for the count, we need people who will speak truth to us, friends who will remind us of God's past faithfulness. We need people who will draw our attention outside of the realm of our immediate circumstances, people to put our circumstances in their proper context.

Your regrets are only part of your story. They don't have to be the story. Your past should remind you. It doesn't have to define you.

What is the one thing I want my audience to know? •   What do I want them to do about it?

Wherever there is fear, there is opportunity. Wherever there is great fear, there is great opportunity.

As I listen to leaders tell their stories, I hear very little about strategic planning and goal setting. I hear a lot about identifying and acting on opportunities. Strategies and goals have their place. But they don't define leadership. Leaders see and seize opportunity. And in most cases, the opportunities take them by surprise.

How do you recruit and keep volunteers?" Part of the answer is that we clarify the win. Countless individuals quit working in churches every year

Leaders worth following are always careful. They are careful because they genuinely care for those who have chosen to follow. A leader who is careless will eventually be considered thoughtless by those who have entrusted their future to him.

Leaders understand the unique roles of confidence and caution. Courage requires both. David's caution did not keep him from the battle, but neither did he allow his confidence to blind him to the need to select his stones with care.

Unfortunately, fear often disguises itself behind the mask of care. Fearful people often excuse their fear as caution. "I'm not afraid. I'm just being cautious." "You can't rush these things, you know.

As you evaluate your response to the risks involved in leadership, are you careful or fearful? Every next generation leader must wrestle this question to the ground. What you don't know can hurt you. As a leader, what you don't know can paralyze you. Are you consumed by thoughts such as these: What if it doesn't work? What if I'm wrong? What will others think of me?

Careful is cerebral; fearful is emotional. Careful is fueled by information; fearful is fueled by imagination. Careful calculates risk; fearful avoids risk. Careful wants to achieve success; fearful wants to avoid failure. Careful is concerned about progress; fearful is concerned about protection.

Because of the pressure to fit in and to please, we can find ourselves making decisions that don't align with our highest good. When we make decisions from the fear of being judged and/or rejected, we doom ourselves to this people-pleasing brand of decision-making.

This goes right to the heart of leadership. Leaders instill courage in the hearts of those who follow. This rarely happens through words alone. It generally requires action. It goes back to what we said earlier: Somebody has to go first. By going first, the leader furnishes confidence to those who follow. In this way, leaders give permission.

As Paul Naeger reminds us in his excellent article Red Flag Decision Making, Emotions serve a purpose, informing us what to do. If our brain comes across something and categorizes it as a "red flag," we will be notified through thoughts and feelings created by emotion. This "red flag" alerts us to pay attention. Our emotions act as a cueing system notifying us to pay attention and take action.

Courage in a strategic moment can change the playing field dramatically.

We almost always involve unbelievers in our small groups. And we give them opportunities to lead the discussion.

God had called and equipped David to lead. But it took an act of courage for that call to be recognized by the public.

I don't know about you, but there have been plenty of times when I have driven home from a hospital visit wondering why they let me be the pastor.

As a next generation leader you already possess the talent and intuition necessary to lead. But chances are it is your courage that will establish you as a leader in the minds of others. To put it in perspective, try to identify a leader worth following who didn't pop up on the public radar screen as a result of a decision or action that required courage.

most of us want to be proven right more than we want to know what's true. We aren't on truth quests. We're on confirmation quests.

But David felt something else as well. A tension. A hesitation. Something wasn't exactly right about all of this. But that inner hesitation made no sense in light of the circumstances in which he and his loyal men found themselves.

One of the reasons we ignore the tension when we are making decisions . . . one reason we push through and ignore the advice of other people or the voice of our conscience is: We believe we can predict outcomes. Don't we? We think we know. But we don't know. You don't always predict outcomes accurately, do you? Does anybody? If you've ever been disappointed, you know this to be the case.