Andy Stanley quotes:

The church wasn't an organization in the first century. They weren't writing checks or buying property. The church has matured and developed over the years. But for some reason, the last thing to change is the structure of leadership.

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 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.

There is no cramming for a test of character. It always comes as a pop quiz.

A single act of courage is often the tipping point for extraordinary change.

Success means your options multiply. Size increases complexity, and complexity can confuse vision.

Somehow, what's in our hearts, good or bad is eventually translated into words and deeds.

What percentage should you give? I tell people to start with 10 percent because the Bible writers have a lot to say about the tithe, which means, "tenth." For some people, that's extremely uncomfortable. But so is a colonoscopy, and those save countless lives.

Preaching on Sunday mornings is such a simple thing, and by complicating it, I think we all do ourselves and the audience a disservice. It is very simple. Here is the model: Make people feel like they need an answer to a question.

Christians are viewed as being "judgmental, homophobic, moralists" who think they are the only ones going to heaven and who "secretly relish the fact that everyone else is going to hell.

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.

If it suddenly became impossible for us to cover up all the junk we normally hide from the rest of humanity, I have a feeling we would all get real motivated to deal with the source of what ails us.

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

God is a God of systems and predictability and order, and God honors planning.

All Scripture is equally inspired, but not all Scripture is equally applicable or relevant to every stage of life.

The issue is: how do you engage the audience? And one of the things I talk to our communicators about is: The outline is great; the stories are great. But how do you engage them? How do you make it feel like we are on a journey, not you are just up there giving me information.

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

Serving people we don't see eye to eye with is the essence of Christianity. Jesus died for a world with which he didn't see eye to eye. If a bakery doesn't want to sell its products to a gay couple, it's their business. Literally. But leave Jesus out of it.

There is a big difference between being a leader and actually leading.

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.

Your devotion to God is illustrated, demonstrated, and authenticated by your love for others.

Leadership is all about taking people on a journey. The challenge is that most of the time, we are asking people to follow us to places we ourselves have never been.

Relationships are built on small, consistent deposits of time. You can't cram for what's most important. If you want to connect with your kids, you've got to be available consistently, not randomly.

Why does every relationship end the same way? In most cases the answer is, Because every relationship started the same way.

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

The greatest motivator of change is a crystal-clear vision of what the future should look like.

Most of us wake up every day and make decision that will make us happy, and generally decisions that will make us happy right then in the moment or that day. We are not really on a truth quest.

The root of anger is the perception that something has been taken. Something is owed you, and now a debt to debtor relationship has been established.

Author has developed a routine of daily emotional debriefing with his kids as he tucks them in at night. To encourage the habit of keeping uncluttered, open heart, he starts with basic questions asking whether anyone has hurt them or made them angry to help them process at an age-appropriate depth. As they mature, he will add questions.

After all, it takes a lot of planning to marry the wrong person.

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

Fixing things requires change and change always creates conflict. But that is why you are a leader.

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

Peace is a fruit of the Spirit, not the byproduct of accumulated wealth.

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

Your talent and giftedness as a leader have the potential to take you farther than your character can sustain you. That ought to scare you.

I'm not a philanthropist. While I care about the poor, the issue of local or global poverty doesn't keep me up at night.

Why? Why did God provide me with more than I need?

If you want to know if I'm a Godly man, follow me home.

A good coach always coaches to a leader's potential, not his current level of performance. A good leadership coach will see the potential in you and inspire you accordingly.

Grace is not reserved for good people; grace underscores the goodness of God.

Most of us are married to a model of ministry and we flirt with the Great Commission.

Your greatest accomplishment may not be something you do but someone you raise.

Vision rarely require immediate action. It requires patience.

There is something insincere about a man or woman who repeatedly tells God how much he or she loves Him while refusing to obey Him.

...often, stepping outside your comfort zone is not careless irresponsibility, but a necessary act of obedience.

Your leadership development strategy is perfectly designed to produce the caliber of leader you currently have.

When you harness your leadership skill to your broken heart change happens.

When you make giving a priority, something happens inside of you. Especially when it's financially challenging to do so. It's like you loosen your grip on a value system whose motto says, "Money is the key to life and happiness and safety."

Nothing is more honoring to your heavenly Father than making life decisions based upon what he has claimed about himself.

How you live your life on this side of the grave determines what happens next.

Maintaining peace with God is more important than keeping pace with someone else.

For reasons known only to him, God has chosen to work through men and women who are willing to make sacrifices for the sake of the "thing" he has placed in their hearts to do. If God bas birthed a vision in you, it is only a matter of time until you will come upon the precipice of sacrifice.

I want people to help me reanchor the church to undeniable, mind-boggling, culture-shifting demonstration of compassion and generosity. Because, generosity was the hallmark of the early church.

When Nehemiah's heart was broken he paid attention to his broken heart.

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

Everything now will prepare you for the next step. Don't run from adversity; lean into it with all your heart and God will make you a leader worth following.

If we were able to rewrite the script for the reputation of Christianity, I think we would put the emphasis on developing relationships with non-believers, serving them, loving them, and making them feel accepted, only then would we earn the right to share the gospel.

Spiritual maturity is measured in terms of persevering faith, not perfect behavior

When happiness points in one direction while wisdom, truth, integrity, and common sense point in another, that's when really smart people start doing really stupid things.

We hurt most who we love the most. Bad grammar, painful truth.

Something I've noticed. Church planters don't pray for revival. They pray for opportunity, favor with the unchurched and leaders.

The most significant visions are not cast by great orators from a stage. They are cast at the bedsides of our children. The greatest visioncasting opportunities happen between the hours of 7:30 and 9:30 PM Monday through Sunday. In these closing hours of the day we have a unique opportunity to plant the seeds of what could be and what should be. Take every opportunity you get.

Guilt rarely results in positive behavior. But gratitude? Great things flow from a heart of gratitude.

We don't drift into good directions. We discipline and prioritize ourselves there.

Stop looking for solutions to problems and start looking for the right path.

Praying for revival equates to blaming God for the condition of your local church.

As you give to fund God's needs, are you forced to trust Him to provide for yours? That's what a growing faith is about. And over the long haul, it's not enough just to commit to a percentage. Growth means reviewing your giving goals and occasionally increasing the percentage you give.

..the best strategy for giving is a two-fold approach: a basic plan combined with a willingness to consider spontaneous giving when unique opportunities arise.

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.

If you see your brother in need, it doesn't matter if you already gave somewhere else. You should be open to the idea of God using you to meet your brother's unexpected need.

Theology isn't what drove them to their...theology." author writes on dealing with the embittering experience of those who protect a wounded place with abstract arguments.

Loyalty publicly results in leverage privately.

As believers, we all have the responsibility to leverage our wealth for kingdom purposes.

Here's a scary thought: What if God called you to give beyond your comfort level? Would you be afraid? Would you try to explain it away or dismiss it as impractical? And in the process, would you miss out on a harvest opportunity for which God had explicitly prospered you in the first place?

Likewise, most of the world goes to bed at night under the assumption that if they were to die in their sleep, they would find themselves standing at the pearly gates. After all, good people go to heaven. And just about everybody thinks they are good.

In the shadow of my hurt, forgiveness feel like a decision to reward my enemy. But in the shadow of the cross, forgiveness is merely a gift from one undeserving soul to another.

Me and Sandra are thoroughly satisfied customers as parents of kids who came through this Orange model.

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.

To be the best next-generation leader you can be, you must enlist the help of others. Self-evaluation is helpful, but evaluation from someone else is essential. You need a leadership coach. Coaching enables a leader to go further faster.

Grace is inviting to the unrighteous and threatening to the self-righteous

Giving up something now for something better later is not a sacrifice. It is an investment.

T-shirts create a sense of "We". Food says, "We don't mind spending money on you."

When the house is on fire, don't tell me what your spiritual gift is. Just grab a hose and put out the fire.

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.

Preachers prepare with this fear: 'Am I going to be able to fill the time?' The audience never worries about that.

If you're a preacher's kid, you see the church differently.

"How" is what kills vision and dreams. Don't ask "How" until we figure out the "What". The "How" can kill the "What".

Personal Vision is often the catalyst for wise decisions.

At the end of the day, God's love for me, for you, and for the world is settled at the cross.

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

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.

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

There will be very few occasions when you are absolutely certain about anything. You will consistently be called upon to make decisions with limited information. That being the case, your goal should not be to eliminate uncertainty. Instead, you must develop the art of being clear in the face of uncertainty.

Greed is not a financial issue. It's a heart issue.

It's better to make a difference than to make a point.

Leaders who refuse to listen, will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing helpful to say

You have no idea the numbers of people that God may want to influence through you

Christianity teaches that when man sinned, God opted for forgiveness rather than fairness. He opted for grace and mercy rather than justice.

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.

Blame enables us to smuggle our issues into our future.

Pencil in your plans but write your visions in ink

It takes a habit to break a habit. You can pray every day for a generous heart, but until you start acting in that direction, nothing's going to change.

When I count other people's blessings I lose sight of mine.

There is an appropriate way to use your story, not as an excuse but as a testimony to God's ability to free you from the past.

Good people don't go to heaven. Forgiven people go to heaven.

Your friends will determine the quality and direction of your life.

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

Direction, not intention determines your destination.

As long as you are carrying a secret, as long as you are trying to ease your conscience by telling God how sorry you are, you are setting yourself up to repeat the past.

The value of a life is always measured by how much of it is given away.

The Church is a family expecting guests.

The God of Christianity never claims to be fair. He goes beyond fair. The Bible teaches that he decided not to give us what we deserve- that's mercy. In addition, God decided to give us exactly what we didn't deserve- we call that grace.

Any fear associated with giving to God's kingdom is irrational. It's on par with a farmer who, out of fear of losing his seed, refuses to plant his fields.

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

A good coach will evaluate your performance against your potential. A coach helps you measure your performance against your strengths instead of against someone else's. A coach will know what you are capable of and will push you to your limit.

God often showcases his power on the stage of human weakness.

Celebrate what God has given others. Leverage what God has given you.

Two things make a relationship providential: when we hear from God through someone and when we see God in someone.