Bill Hybels quotes:

Visionary people face the same problems everyone else faces; but rather than get paralyzed by their problems, visionaries immediately commit themselves to finding a solution.

I hate thinking about it, teaching about it, and writing about it. But the plain truth is that hell is real and real people go there for eternity.

For a marriage relationship to flourish, there must be intimacy. It takes an enormous amount of courage to say to your spouse, 'This is me. I'm not proud of it - in fact, I'm a little embarrassed by it - but this is who I am.

More than anything, people want the reality of the discussion at hand. If what is going on in that building is the real thing, if the transforming love and power of Jesus Christ is being experienced, you can sit on a metal folding chair or in a plush theater seat.

God wants to father all of us until we're dead sure of his approval, his guiding power and his promise of heaven.

We all have strengths, weaknesses and blind spots. In fact, an average person has 3.4 blind spots.

Thirty years ago, we were in a movie theater and thought it was so cool because we were finally delivered from the horrors of stained glass and wooden pews.

Ten years ago, 15 years ago, I think the church would have been asleep at the switch. This level of activism and engagement with the needs of society by local churches I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime.

The best gift you can give a human being is an introduction to a God who loves them.

It's incredible to realize that what we do each day has meaning in the big picture of God's plan

I look at tens of thousands of church leaders who still do need a bit of an awakening.

Your culture will only ever be as healthy as the senior leader wants it to be.

Storms draw something out of us that calm seas don't.

Church is what you do. Church is who you are. Church is the human outworking of the person of Jesus Christ. Let's not go to Church, let's be the Church.

Dignity does not float down from heaven it cannot be purchased nor manufactured. It is a reward reserved for those who labor with diligence.

The leader is the organization's top strategist... systematically envisioning the future and specifically mapping out how to get there.

Leadership is not for the faint of heart

People will not follow a leader with moral incongruities for long. Every time you compromise character you compromise leadership. The foundation of firm leadership is character.

He's dangerous because when God talks to him Bob will do whatever God asks him to do at great cost, even if no one agrees, if it's contrary to the way the stream is going, if Bob feels God is in it he will do it.

This is the only leadership life I get, my one and only shot at following God the way I feel him prompting me to do so. This isn't some pre-game warm-up. It's the game, and the clock is ticking!

Great leadership is by definition relentlessly developmental.

It helps certain church leaders identify the fact that they have the spiritual gift of leadership that the Bible talks about in Romans 12:8. Once you understand that God has given a gift, then training becomes more seriously. When you receive better training, you become more effective in the leadership position that God has assigned to you.

The local church is the hope of the world, and its future rests primarily in the hands of its leaders

Those churches have closed down or have been merged with a church that has a more positive vision.

If you lower the ambient noise of your life and listen expectantly for those whispers of God, your ears will hear them. And when you follow their lead, your world will be rocked.

Is the ambient noise level of my life low enough for me to hear the whispers of the Lord?

Jesus is not directing the angelic choir, taking long naps, or doing crossword puzzles. He is completely focused on building his church, the hope of the world.

The Christian life is one of faith, where we find ourselves routinely overdriving our headlights but knowing it's okay because God is in control and has a purpose behind it.

Live each day with an open ear toward heaven, eager to respond to any whisper from God.

It's not the things I don't understand about the Bible that bother me; it's the things I understand with perfect clarity and don't comply with that keep me up at night.

Coaching is the most important servant/leadership element in helping people accomplish their goals.

The real deal is always going to win in the end.

There isn't a single motivation, thought, act, or word that has slipped out of your being and escaped the full, undivided attention of God.

Wise leaders understand that the single greatest determinant of whether followers will ever own a vision deeply is the extent to which whose followers believe the leader will own it.

The worst days of leadership beat the best days of being an onlooker.

Nothing on earth has greater potential to change lives and carry out His kingdom work in your community, than your local church.There's nothing like the local church when it's working right. Its beauty is indescribable. Its power is breathtaking. Its potential is unlimited. No other organization on earth is like the church. Nothing even comes close.

If the request is wrong, God says, No. If the timing is wrong, God says, Slow. If you are wrong, God says, Grow. But if the request is right, the timing is right and you are right, God says, Go!

When you get to the end will God say, "Well done," or, "What was up with that?"

The heart and soul of the Christian life is learning to hear God's voice and then developing the courage to do what he asks us to do.

The local church is the hope of the world, and its future rests primarily in the hands of its leaders.

You have never looked in the eyes of someone who does not matter to God.

Prayerless people cut themselves off from God's prevailing power, and the frequent result is the familiar feeling of being overwhelmed, overrun, beaten down, pushed around, defeated. Surprising numbers of people are willing to settle for lives like that.

You are the most difficult person you will ever lead.

I'm praying to the Creator of the world, the King of the universe, the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-faithful God. I'm praying to the God who made the mountains and who can move them if necessary. I'm praying to the God who has always been faithful to me, who has never let me down no matter how frightened I was or how difficult the situation looked. I'm praying to a God who wants to bear fruit through me, and I am going to trust that he is going to use me tonight. Not because of who I am, but because of who he is. He is faithful.

The only way to motivate people is to live a motivated life in front of them

If you don't change your schedule, you'll be the same person you've always been.

Vision is a picture of the future that produces passion.

Nothing that matters in this world happens unless leaders lead it.

Religion is spelled 'D-O', because it consists of the things people do try to somehow gain God's forgiveness and favor. But the problem is that you never know when you've done enough. But thankfully, Christianity is spelled differently. It's spelled 'D-O-N-E', which means that what we could never for ourselves, Christ has already done for us. To become a real Christian is to humbly receive God's gift of forgiveness and to commit to following His leadership.

There is nothing like the local church when the local church is working right.

God didn't make you a leader to respond to stuff all day. He made you a leader to move things forward.

I would never want to reach out someday with a soft, uncallused hand-a hand never dirtied by serving-and shake the nail-pierced hand of Jesus.

Itâ??s amazing how many coincidences occur when one begins to pray.

You may well have to simplify to live the life God is inviting you to live.

A leader's most valuable asset is not their time but their energy and ability to energize others.

Life is too short and the world too compassion-starved for you to keep subsisting in situations that drag you down and curtail your potential to help advance the Kingdom. There's just too much at stake.

Build something with enduring value.

Every single decision you make as a leader has an effect on the spirit of those you lead.

The local church is the hope of the world.

Personally, I've never understood inactivity. Why a person would sit when he could soar, be a spectator when he could play, or atrophy when he could develop...is beyond me!

Most people feel best about themselves when they have given their very best.

I can usually sense that a leading is from the Holy Spirit when it calls me to humble myself, serve somebody, encourage somebody or give something away. Very rarely will the evil one lead us to do those kinds of things.

If we were to boil down Christianity to its core, we'd be left with simply this: relationship with God. The living, loving God of the universe has spoken throughout history, and still speaks today - not just to pastors or priests, but to anyone who will listen. God will speak to you.

God delights in pouring his favor on obedient risk takers.

Obeying the Spirit instead of your own self-centered whims will lead you to places you've never been, challenge you in ways you have never been challenged, and invite levels of sacrifice you never dreamed you could make. This is the power and the promise of full-throttle faith, of living a life fueled solely by God.

God made you on purpose, for a purpose

When God transforms the life of just one leader, that leader can transform a church. When one church is transformed, you can transform a community. And when enough churches are thriving, you can affect a region, a country, and eventually the entire world with the positive, life-changing power of Jesus Christ and the redeeming and restoring work of his people.

Leadership requires a non-stop demand of fortitude from Day 1 to the end.

One of the greatest thrills in all of life is to feel the hand of God working through you and to be a part of the working reality of the church engaged in a movement larger than self.

You're a leader. It's your job to keep your passion hot. Do whatever you have to do, read whatever you have to read, go wherever you have to go to stay fired up. And don't apologize to anybody.

The Lord's Prayer is an excellent model, but it was never intended to be a magical incantation to get God's attention. Jesus gave this prayer as a pattern to suggest the variety of elements that should be included when we pray.

God led Jesus to a cross, not a crown, and yet that cross ultimately proved to be the gateway to freedom and forgiveness for every sinner in the world.

The more varied the environments in which you exercise your leadership gift, the stronger that gift will become. You will become a far more effective leader.

One of the greatest joys of leadership is assembling and knitting together teams of fantastic people.

Authentic Christians are persons who stand apart from others. Their character seems deeper, their ideas fresher, their spirit softer, their courage greater, their leadership stronger, their concerns wider, their compassion more genuine and their convictions more concrete.

You can live and lead small, live and lead safe, live and lead selfishly, or you can pursue a grander vision.

People won't give their best unless their leader challenges them to do so.

One thing is that life's great moments evolve from simple acts of cooperation with God's mysterious promptings-nudges that always lean toward finding what's been lost and freeing what's been enslaved .

Everyone wins when a leader gets better

The mark of community is not the absence of conflict. It's the presence of a reconciling spirit.

Church work ought to be at its core the work of loving people like God loves them

Life's great moments evolve from simples acts of cooperation with God's mysterious promptings.

If there is ever a time crying out for courageous leadership, its now.

How do you pray a prayer so filled with faith that it can move a mountain? By shifting your focus from the size of your mountain to the sufficiency of the Mountain Mover and then stepping forward in obedience.

Self awareness allows you to self-correct.

Most of us are far too busy for our own spiritual good.

Authentic Christianity is a supernatural walk with a living, dynamic, communicating God.

You don't have to be any more talented, any richer, any slimmer, any smarter, any more or less of anything to partner with God. All you have to be is willing to be used by him in everyday way

Destructive fear must be stopped in its tracks or it will undermine the life God invites us to live.

Leaders, your God-given job is not merely to preside over something, not to pontificate to your underlings how smart you are, not merely to preserve something from its gradual demise; it's to figure out what God wants to get done in this world, figure out what role you play in that, and then to move something or someone from here to there.

It's one thing to see a vision; it's another thing to be seized by a vision.

To be developed as a leader, failure must be allowed. Failure only helps us improve.

If leaders don't have an antidote for fear they will be crushed by it. What is your antidote?

Many leadership problems are driven by low self-awareness.

The tithe is a wonderful goal but a terrible place to stop.

We will probably have to pay a price for devoting our lives to building the kingdom of God. Jesus did.

Leadership is the catalytic gift that energizes, directs, and empowers all the other gifts.

The grander the vision the greater the price tag.

Whatever the capacity for human suffering, the church has a greater capacity for healing and wholeness.

Busyness is the unrivaled archenemy of spiritual authenticity.

Vision is the most powerful weapon in the leader's arsenal.

Most unmarried people have no idea what it takes to make a marriage work; they grossly underestimate the price people have to pay to build long-term, mutually satisfying relationships. And they fail to understand that the only people with the strength to pay that price are those who have plumbed the depths of their relationship with God, and have dealt with their own brokenness.

We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become 'self feeders.' We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.

Legacy leaders are the only ones wiling to pay the price to fix a broken culture.

Our conduct will never change God's character.

Leaders need to have a ruthless commitment to resolving relational conflict regardless of how bad it feels.

It takes a great deal of courage to follow another person's lead.

Whenever you see something going well - whenever light begins to chase back the darkness that threatens to engulf our world - look closely. There stands a leader who is holding that candle.

We live in a world that is crying out for better leadership.

People join organizations, they leave managers.

Leadership in church is one of the biggest challenges that the Church is facing because without strong leadership, the church rarely lives out its redemptive potentials.

Playing around is one thing; following an established regimen is quite another. It's true with exercise equipment and it is true with prayer.

The Church will never reach her full redemptive potential until men and women with the leadership gift step up and lead.

Truly, spiritual courage is on the endangered character-quality list.

Don't get so addicted to vision that the people feel like equipment

Effective leaders do not fear passion. They welcome it. But from time to time passionate discussions digress into personal attacks, and real people get really hurt. In my view, leaders must head that off before it happens.