Quotes from Alfred Ells

Once you've experienced any emotional pain, the pain is imprinted on your inner being and remains there until you intentionally resolve it.

Getting better requires humbling ourselves before the Lord.

Leaders aren't just born. They're made. You can never stop learning. You can't lead from the back. You have to take care of your people first.

A leader should always approach a crisis from the perspective that God has something to teach him or her. Adversity is a pathway to refinement.

If I am successful in my chosen calling in life, I am thriving. But that's not entirely true. There are many seemingly successful people in and out of ministry who are nevertheless miserable.

To determine whether you are truly thriving, you must also consider your eulogy virtues—the virtues others will extol at your funeral. These are the character traits at your core, the deep internal part of you where it's not always comfortable to look for any length of time.

Successes teach us very little. A successful design doesn't tell us how close to failure it might be.

The key to surviving and thriving in leadership often rests in increasing our self-awareness.

The secret to a fulfilling marriage is simple: make the connection work.

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

If you don't invest time in your children when they are younger, you'll pay for it when they are older.

If your crisis has turned into a long-lasting trial, it's more important than ever that you surround yourself with intelligent, caring friends who will be in it with you for the long haul. The greater the spiritual battle, the more there is likely at stake—in your life and in the spiritual realm. Gird yourself for battle, and refuse to give in or give up.

Correction without connection yields rejection.

Remember, every attack of the Enemy has a shelf life; this too will pass. But endurance, or grit, is necessary to survive a siege.

Grit, or the ability to endure, is hard to come by. It is developed only by walking through the fire and not giving up.

An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money. 1 Timothy 3:2–3

As the heart and health of the leader goes, so goes the ministry.

When disciplined, however, the individual is given consequences that help shape him or her for future success.

Discipline says, "You need to change this behavior, and this will help you do so." It's all about intent and the result. "All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness" (Heb. 12:11).

Much of what you learn through times of adversity will become lifelong wisdom, and these truths will sustain you throughout your ministry.

Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers" (Acts 20:28).

Wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men's hearts. 1 Corinthians 4:5

Your ability to influence others depends on how well you lead yourself.