January 2012
8 posts
5 tags
“Let’s feel no pressure to change quickly. Odd thing for a pastor to say....”
– @rayortlund
Jan 24th
2 notes
“Grace cannot prevail until our lifelong certainty that someone is keeping score...”
– Robert Farrar Capon
Jan 15th
4 tags
“96% of church growth is due to transfer growth instead of churches striking into...”
– Mike Breen via @JonTyson
Jan 13th
1 note
5 tags
READ THE GOSPELS!
“The doctrines on which our discipleship rests are clearest in the epistles, but the nature of discipleship itself is most vividly portrayed in the gospels. Some Christians seem to prefer the epistles as if this were a mark of growing up spiritually; but really this attitude is a very bad sign, suggesting that we are more interested in theological notions than in fellowship with the Lord...
Jan 12th
2 notes
6 tags
“One of our fundamental misunderstandings of spiritual maturity is thinking that...”
– Mark Batterson “The Circle Maker”
Jan 12th
5 notes
4 tags
CONVERSIONS THAT COUNT
“The only conversions that count in the kingdom are those confirmed by a life of discipleship.” ~Craig S. Keener via @alanhirsch
Jan 7th
2 notes
4 tags
“If you can’t reproduce disciples, you’ll never reproduce leaders. If you can’t...”
– Neil Cole Organic Leadership, p. 250
Jan 6th
1 note
4 tags
STEPHEN COLBERT, GOSPEL WITNESS
In 1974, when Colbert was 10, his father, a doctor, and his brothers Peter and Paul, the two closest to him in age, died in a plane crash while flying to a prep school in New England. “There’s a common explanation that profound sadness leads to someone’s becoming a comedian, but I’m not sure that’s a proven equation in my case,” he told me. “I’m not bitter about what happened to me as a child, and...
Jan 5th
1 note
December 2011
6 posts
“Real leaders are people who help us overcome the limitations of our own...”
– David Foster Wallace (via livesent)
Dec 28th
“God loves you so utterly & completely that he has given himself for you in...”
– T.F. Torrance via @ScottyWardSmith
Dec 28th
The Missionary Spirit
“Christians receive the Spirit of Jesus, and the Spirit of Jesus is the missionary spirit.” ~ Leslie Newbigin
Dec 19th
1 note
3 tags
“The meaning of marriage begins in the giving of words. We cannot join ourselves...”
– Wendell Berry, from the essay “Poetry and Marriage” (via ayjay)
Dec 17th
29 notes
“In God’s kingdom the presence of the greatest does not depress the small.”
– JRR Tolkein Essay on Fairy Stories
Dec 17th
4 tags
WatchWatch
THE MISSIONAL NATURE OF THE BIBLE
Dec 2nd
57 notes
November 2011
6 posts
1 tag
“The radical conversion of the heart, the U-turn of the mind which the New...”
– Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks (via dgerm)
Nov 30th
12 notes
“A consumer based ministry sees new believers as clients needing their services....”
– @JesusLabs
Nov 29th
“One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters.”
– Aragorn
Nov 21st
“The church cannot live when the heart of God is not beating within her....”
– Erwin McManus
Nov 14th
5 tags
“I know that you say you would die for your wife, and I believe you. But if that...”
– Joe Thorn, Note to Self via My World
Nov 7th
25 notes
7 tags
DISCIPLESHIP AND THE GOSPEL
Great quote from my friend from seminary, Jonathan Dodson: “Contrary to what some might think, discipleship is not the engine of the church. The gospel is. Without the gospel, both discipleship and church fail. Without the driving force of the gospel, discipleship devolves into self-help religiosity motivated by conservative pietism. The church is reduced to a glorified non-profit in which...
Nov 7th
66 notes
September 2011
12 posts
“If you want a religion to make you feel comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend...”
– ~C.S. Lewis (via @darrinpatrick)
Sep 30th
1 note
“We always treat guests as angels - just in case.”
– ~ Brother Jeremiah, Egyptian monk, 4th Century (via @pastorharv)
Sep 30th
“Best 2 discipleship ?’s I know. Jesus asks both of them “Who do...”
– @dukerevard
Sep 29th
4 tags
“I believe it to be a grave mistake to present Christianity as something charming...”
– Dorothy Sayers via @The_Inklings
Sep 18th
18 notes
“One of the biggest differences between me & God is He doesn’t believe...”
– @STimmis
Sep 16th
“If people aren’t accusing you of living with sinners too much then you...”
– Jeff Vanderstelt
Sep 16th
“God is not interested in 10% of your money, he’s interested in 100%.”
– @STimmis
Sep 16th
“If grace marks our relationship with God, it’s grace that should mark our...”
– @STimmis
Sep 16th
5 tags
“Make obedient disciples. Then you will see churches multiply.”
– George Patterson
Sep 12th
27 notes
6 tags
“Every church needs to be able to answer two questions. One, do we have a plan...”
– Dallas Willard
Sep 6th
8 notes
4 tags
BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE
Are we spending our energy on building for the future or on propping up the terminally-ill past? Steve Addison offers a thought-provoking post asking just this question. ___________________________  A Monument to Lost Causes and Missed Opportunities 2 SEPTEMBER, 2011 By STEVE ADDISON When Saffie the Wonderdog and I take our morning walk, we head out along the creek at the bottom of our...
Sep 1st
“If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the...”
– Jesus John 8.31-32
Sep 1st
August 2011
6 posts
6 tags
STUDY JESUS
“Do you want to know what God looks like? Look at Jesus. ‘No one has ever seen God,’ and God in all of His transcendent splendor we still cannot see until the last day. But the Word became flesh; God became a human being with the name of Jesus; and we can see Him. That is why Jesus later says to one of His own disciples, ‘Don’t you know Me, Philip, even after I have been among you such...
Aug 30th
3 tags
“Jesus promised his disciples three things, that they would be completely...”
– GK Chesterton
Aug 29th
3 notes
HOSPITALITY, HOBBIT STYLE
“His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking.” - The Hobbit
Aug 19th
1 tag
Aug 16th
“You think you’re after love, but what you’re really after is the...”
– Tim Keller
Aug 13th
6 tags
OUT OF THE FORSAKEN LAND
“Far above the mountains in the west, the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was a...
Aug 6th
1 note
July 2011
1 post
5 tags
HOW TO TELL IF YOUR CHURCH IS DOING ITS JOB
Original here
Jul 1st
June 2011
9 posts
3 tags
QUOTES TO BUILD A LIFE ON
Ray Ortlund shares the top ten quotes that have informed his faith and ministry. These are gems. Enjoy. #10 “We must not pass too harsh judgment upon ourselves or others when God doth exercise us with bruising upon bruising; there must be a conformity to our head, Christ, who was bruised for us (Isaiah 53:5), that we may know how much we are bound unto him.  Profane spirits, ignorant of God’s...
Jun 29th
“When the Greeks got the Gospel, they turned it into a philosophy; when the...”
– Richard Halverson
Jun 24th
2 notes
“Skill may win in the short run, but true character (faith, hope, & love)...”
Jun 24th
6 tags
A FRIEND OF THE POOR, THE BROKEN, THE SINNER
Are you friends with people who are broken, poor, struggling? I’m not talking about going to work at the soup kitchen once a month or giving change to a guy at the intersection— Jesus was called a friend of sinners, he spent time with the poor and broken, and brought new life to them. As his followers, as people who are being formed in the image and life of Jesus, do we do the same? ...
Jun 23rd
THE QUANDRY OF THE PAID PASTOR
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. ~ Upton Sinclair via @alanhirsch
Jun 21st
2 notes
“If you’re approaching Him not as the goal but as a road, not as the end...”
– C.S. Lewis
Jun 20th
“Taking up your cross does not mean dealing with the difficulties of life. It...”
– D.A. Carson
Jun 12th
2 notes
“You cannot evangelize people you hate.”
– D.A. Carson
Jun 4th
1 note
1 tag
THE GOSPEL PROMISE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the...
Jun 3rd
“Some young studs asked me how to live missional. My reply “It was said of...”
– @bobbycapps
Jun 1st
May 2011
13 posts
4 tags
LEAVE ROOM FOR THE SPIRIT, FRIENDS
“The average church has so established itself organizationally and financially that God is simply not necessary to it. So entrenched is its authority and so stable are the religious habits of its members that God could withdraw Himself completely from it and it could run on for years on its own momentum.” ~ A.W. Tozer  Quoted in Keith Giles’ book This Is My Body: Ekklesia As God...
May 31st