Being a sinner does not disqualify you from following Jesus. It's a prerequisite.

Jesus healed people one at a time because God cares about individual people.

Jesus did not predict a place. Jesus predicted a people.

Jesus never allowed His theology to get in the way of His ministry.

As a leader it is your job to protect the missional integrity of the Jesus gathering to which you have been called. It is your responsibility to see to it that the church under your care continues as a gathering of people in process; a place where the curious, the unconvinced, the skeptical, the used-to-believe and the broken, as well as the committed, informed and sold-out come together around Peter's declaration that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Jesus is the hope of the world and the local church is the vehicle of expressing that hope to the world.

We begin selling ourselves on what we want to do rather than what we ought to do. We listen to ourselves until we believe our own lies, and the we opt for happiness.

I believe one of the best preparations for marriage is participating in a small group. If a person has learned to be intimate and honest with a few friends before they get married, they will have less reason to fear intimacy after they are married.

My high school science teacher once told me that much of Genesis is false. But since my high school teacher did not prove he was God by rising from the dead, I'm going to believe Jesus instead.

There's a monumental difference in believing in God and believing God.

Believe what you want But don't dumb down what Jesus said.

Our culture highlights all the trouble, all the drama, all the affairs and all the junk. Do not believe for a minute that any of that reflects reality. That does not have to be your future. The handwriting is not written on the wall.

People without clear vision are easily distracted, have a tendency to drift from one idea to another and often make foolish decisions that rob them of their dreams.

People without clear vision are easily distracted, have a tendency to drift from one idea to another and often make foolish decisions that rob them of their dreams.

If fear causes you to retreat from your dreams, you will never give the world anything new.

Strange as it may sound, it is more difficult to maintain a faith walk when we begin to see our dreams come true. When hopes become realities it is easy to shift our faith onto the thing we have dreamed of and off of the One who was the source of our provision.

When your memories exceed your dreams, the end is near.

Nothing has stolen more dreams, dashed more hopes, broken up more families, and messed up more people psychologically than our propensity to disregard God's commands regarding sexual purity.

Dreamers dream about things being different. Visionaries envision themselves making a difference.

The great challenge is how to marry creativity with discipline so that discipline amplifies creativity without destroying it.

When people are convinced you want something FOR them rather than something FROM them, they are less likely to be offended when you challenge them.

No matter how much money we have or make, we will probably never consider ourselves rich. The biggest challenge facing rich people is that they've lost they're ability to recognize that they're rich.

Next generation leaders are those who would rather challenge what needs to change and pay the price than remain silent and die on the inside

A leader is someone who has the courage to say publicly what everybody else is whispering privately. It is not his insight that sets the leader apart from the crowd. It is his courage to act and speak up when everyone else is silent....are those who would rather challenge what needs to change and pay the price than remain silent and die on the inside.

What people pray for will tell you more than anything else whether they are locked into the vision and priorities of the church.

As a pastor, I've spent 30 years talking to people and heard every kind of story imaginable.

When a plan or strategy fails, people are tempted to assume it was the wrong vision. Plans and strategies can always be changed and improved. But vision doesn't change. Visions are simply refined with time.

People pray in one direction but they walk in a different direction, and direction always determines where we end up.

Guys that preach verse-by-verse through books of the Bible - that is just cheating. It's cheating because that would be easy, first of all. That isn't how you grow people. No one in the Scripture modeled that.

People are not on a truth quest; they are on a happiness quest. They will continue to attend your church - even if they don't share your beliefs - as long as they find the content engaging and helpful.

Communicators need to figure out how well do they engage people, and they should not talk one word longer than people are engaged.

You cannot communicate complicated information to large groups of people. As you increase the number of people, you have to decrease the complexity of the information.

There are some rich people who, no matter how much God sends their way, never seem to put their hope in their riches.

Rich people have the potential to reach a point where they see money as the source of their safety and security.

80% of your problems are not PEOPLE problems ... they are SYSTEM problems, because systems create the behaviors of people.

Success is an intoxicant, and intoxicated people seldom have a firm grasp on reality.

Leadership is not always about getting things done 'right.' Leadership is about getting things done through other people.

The love of Christ comes from simple people who love simple people. Never be fooled by the spiritual leader who knows a lot but doesn't love a lot.

People without clear vision are easily distracted, have a tendency to drift from one idea to another and often make foolish decisions that rob them of their dreams.

I can't make people fall in love with Jesus, but I can arrange dates.

You can't influence people you refuse to associate with.

It's ok for people to feel bad about the wrong things they've done.

Greed is supported by an endless cast of what-ifs. Greedy people can never have enough to satisfy the need they feel in light of every conceivable eventuality.

People are far more interested in what works than what's true.

It's OK to offend people with the Gospel, but, good grief- let's don't offend them with something else.

When people are convinced you want something FOR them rather than something FROM them, they are less likely to be offended when you challenge them.

On day one, the Church wasn't for church people because there weren't any church people.

Jesus did not predict a place. Jesus predicted a people.

Many years from now, what would you like people to line up and thank you for?

People do not plan to mess up their lives. They just don't plan not to.