Quotes About Engagement

Instead of celebrating how many people came, the most important measurement would be how many came back.

We ask everyone to use sentence prayers (one person praying for just one item at a time). This shuts down the long-winded dominator and enables those who are new or more introverted to pray out loud much more easily. Of course, if someone doesn't want to pray, they don't have to.

High-powered front-door programs can have the unintended consequence of sending a message that some weekends and programs are for bringing guests—and the rest aren't.

Since longtime members who switch services don't like to be asked if they're visiting (try it; you'll enjoy the dirty looks), most of us learn to treat anyone we don't recognize as a regular we haven't met or someone whose face we can't remember.

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

Frankly, not many people show up. But that's a sign of high trust, not low commitment (the measure of commitment is best found in our high number of volunteers, not in how few show up for a boring business meeting).

Once people get a taste of frontline ministry, they don't let it go easily. Once the church has been let loose, it's hard to put it back in the box.

If the back door of a church is left wide open, it doesn't matter how many people are coaxed to come in the front door—or the side door, for that matter.

First, it strongly emphasizes evangelism. Every group is required to have an empty chair that is supposed to be filled with a new Christian before the year is out. Second, it's based on the idea that the most effective way to bring new Christians into the larger church is to first reach them through a small group.

I often have people come up to me after a sermon and show me their outline, pointing out some blanks they filled out before the message began. You can see in their eyes and sly smile a sense of "Look, I got you!" In reality I got them. If they're jotting down a passage, a point, or one of my favorite sound bites before I say it, they've come to the point of knowing the information. In the ultimate sense, my message has become memorable.

But seeing that the mind has wandered is practice.

Being a press secretary is like learning to type: You're hunting and pecking for a while and then you find yourself doing the touch system and don't realize it. You're speaking for the president without ever having to go to him.

There are three types of baseball players: those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and those who wonder what happens.

And yet, if she wasn't pretty, she didn't know it. She spoke and walked and moved her hands as if she were bewitchingly pretty. And for some reason, it was hard to take your eyes off her. I guess a novel would have said it was the play of her features. She was lively; she was animated; her lips curved with mischief, and her small eyes sparkled. I wonder if my features ever play. I bet they don

Politics is a people business. I like people.

A good book is like an unreachable itch. You just can't leave it alone.

Life is about the decisions we make to live passionately or passively. Where's your passion?

Remember, your tone is your superpower. It can invite people to hear more and say yes to your ask, or it can turn them off, and your ask will fizzle away.

To listen with presence means there is nothing else in the world going on but the person in front of you and what they have to say. When you ask, you need to listen to the person's every word and be present, and show you are present, and then and only then can you make the right response to their ask.

First, you need to write down fifteen things you think the person will say to your ask. Second, you need to write fifteen things you will say to each of the fifteen responses you think you will receive. If you think this takes time, it sure does. Is it worth it? You bet.

A person can "see" right through you, even if you are on the phone and not in person. Think for a minute when you had someone on the line, and you could tell they were distracted, multitasking, or speaking or whispering to someone else. How did you feel? Not great because this person was not devoting their time or attention on you.

When you catch yourself saying things and doing things that indicate you expect the other person will know exactly what you mean and will do what you anticipate, take a minute and see if you actually asked for what you wanted. Chances are you never asked.

you talk 25 percent of the time, and they talk 75 percent.

This is where we "overtalk the ask." You begin explaining more about why there is a need for what you want without listening to their thoughts. If you don't know their thoughts, you guess what they are, and you jump in with long and lengthy explanations, qualifications, or negotiations, hoping you will convince the person to say yes.