Quotes About Growth

Hey, Dinky …, sooner or later you're going to have to make a commitment to someone. Which means making a commitment to yourself. And a commitment to the notion that our shitty beginnings don't have to cripple us for life.

Every believer may not be called to preach, but every Christian is called to pray. Prayer is our duty. Prayer is our privilege. Prayer, like air, water and food, is necessary for our survival and growth. But many believers regard prayer as an optional activity.

Face the facts. If you do not begin to pray, you will not be any further along with the Lord next year than you are right now.

Literature's father figures can only loom, intimidate, and inspire for so long before they must be slain by their offspring.

I'm glad I've been wrong enough to keep in practice. . . You can't avoid it, you've got to learn to handle it. If you only come face to face with your own mistakes once or twice in your life it's bound to be extra painful. I face mine every day--that way they ain't usually much worse than a dry shave.

It's no different in the spiritual realm. Our failures don't have to define us. It all depends on how we respond. If we curse our luck, blame others, and fail to take responsibility, we'll continue to fail. But if we face the facts, accept responsibility, and humbly get back on the right path, our failures can lay the groundwork for future success.

But success and failure reveal nothing about our spirituality.

In the school of life, Trials, Hardship, and Suffering are three classes no one wants to take.

Trying to follow all the best practices of all best Christians won't make you a better Christian. It might make you a nervous wreck.

The ultimate goal of a sermon-based small group is simply to velcro people to the two things they will need most when faced with a need-to-know or need-to-grow situation: the Bible and other Christians.

The mentoring model for discipleship and leadership training is primarily focused on one-on-one relationships. It envisions every Christian having a mentor and mentoring someone else down the line.

The primary reason to be in a small group setting is not to learn more biblical information.

Specialists who can't become trainers or who aren't willing to become trainers will eventually put a ceiling on the growth of your church or bust your budget.

To be structured for spiritual growth, a church (whether front-door or back-door focused) must have some sort of method in place to consistently connect people to both significant relationships and the Bible.

The third kind of soil was weed infested, resulting in a crop that once again looked good for a while but eventually was choked off by what Jesus called the deceitfulness of riches and the desire for other things.

Third, it promises the potential of unlimited evangelism and church growth, because groups can grow and divide indefinitely—thus providing care and connectedness no matter how large the church gets.

Everything we do is aimed at helping the Christians we already have grow stronger in Christ. But everything is done in such a way that their non-Christian friends will understand all that we're saying and doing. Bottom line: We've tried to create a perfect storm for come-and-see evangelism while velcroing newcomers for long-term spiritual growth.

A Radically Different View of Authority Another major difference between the places where Cho's model leads to explosive growth and the places where it flounders can be found in their radically different views of spiritual authority.

If you ask an economist what's driven economic growth, it's been major advances in things that mattered - the mechanization of farming, mass manufacturing, things like that. The problem is, our society is not organized around doing that.

It is good to sit a little longer than you want to so you see the part of your mind that resists practice

I have to sound critical just to let people know there is more to life than they have realized.

Buffett knows that a down market is when investors should be buying, not selling.

By contrast, the growth of Christianity in its first three centuries, the most crucial period, was largely by a combination of the power of persuasion, whether in preaching, intellectual argument, "miracles" exhibiting the power of Jesus' name, and simply the moral suasion of Christian behavior, including martyrdom. Granted,

Having a strong vision can help with innovation, but so much creativity and innovation comes from one's ability to take risks – controlled risks – and learn from mistakes.