These are quotes which stood out to me, possibly for use in a sermon someday. Their presence here does not mean I agree with them, it merely shows that I might want to reference them later. The default view is five random selections. Use the tag list on the right to view all quotes relevant to that theme.
No time for your health today; no health for your time tomorrow. -Irish Proverb
Every church I have worked with as a consultant has been filled with good people who care about each other. That is their strength; it is also their weakness. They are so good they will put up with people that no one else on earth will put up with. Because of their goodness, they attract a handful of neurotic, mean-spirited, self- centered people who do everything in their power to control what happens in the church. When the church finally gets fed up with them and does something they do not like, over their heated protest, they get mad and leave the church. Almost every church that begins to grow after a long-term decline experiences someone storming out of the church during the transition.
I am, indeed, far from agreeing with those who think all religious fear barbarous and degrading and demand that it should be banished from the spiritual life. Perfect love, we know, casteth out fear. But so do several other things -- ignorance, alcohol, passion presumption, and stupidity. It is very desirable that we should all advance to that perfection of love in which we shall fear no longer; but it is very undesirable, until we have reached that stage, that we should allow any inferior agent to cast out our fear.
Most any pastor can help people in times of need. It doesn’t take a skillful pastor to visit someone in the hospital and be comforting. Moments when people are down and desperate are not the greatest tests of our ministry. The greatest tests are those times when people are not down, desperate, or at the end of their rope. It takes a real pastor to go into a family where someone has just been promoted to the presidency of the local bank and say, ‘Mary, I’ve just gotten the news of your promotion. So I rushed over, knowing that this promotion is placing you in an extremely vulnerable position as far as your soul is concerned. I wanted to come stand beside you during this time of potential temptation. Could we pray?’ [editor: It is also a time for celebration, I might add.] By: George Buttrick Source: Salt of The Earth, March/April, 1996
Q: Problems are more complex, but we also have more "knowledge workers" for dealing with them. Management philosopher Peter Drucker says that knowledge workers can't be supervised. Do you agree? A: Back in 1973, the third Skylab crew had a tight schedule of experiments to run. NASA kept leaning on them to take on more experiments. The crew got more behind, more overloaded, so it turned off the microphone for 24 hours and spent some time reading and looking out the window. This says something about how companies blend control and autonomy. People are better able to get complex assignments done when given more discretion within a framework of common values.