Relevance: 100%

Author: Rick Warren

Quote: You are the sum total of your habits. You've got good ones and you've got bad ones, but the things you habitually do are the things that make you. The key to spiritual growth is developing good habits.

Tweet

Relevance: 100%

Quote: Patience is the ability to wait for an expected outcome without experiencing anxiety, tension, or frustration. Patience is the ability to let go of the need for immediate gratification. Patience is the ability to be tolerant, compassionate and understanding toward those who are slower than oneself in developing emotional maturity and coping abilities. Patience is the ability to believe in the concept of commitment and to be calm and considerate in handling growth issues in all relationships. Patience is the ability to feel peace and satisfaction about being on the path to recovery and personal growth. Patience is the ability to accept the non-enthusiastic response of others to one’s personal growth and recovery. Patience is the ability to feel relaxed, calm and placid as one faces their daily schedule and the challenges it presents.3 Patience is the ability to get up and to try again after failing or making a mistake.

Webpage: http://www.christchurchofpeace.org/sermons/2006-10-1-Fruit-of-the-spirit-Patience.pdf

Tweet

Relevance: 100%

Author: Rick Warren

Quote: Healthy growth takes TIME. When God wants to make a mushroom, he takes 6 hours. When he wants to make an oak tree, he takes 60 years. Do you want to be a mushroom or an oak tree?

Webpage: http://blog.pastors.com/blogs/pcom/ten-key-points-to-remember-in-2012/

Tweet

Relevance: 100%

Author: Ed Stetzer

Quote: There must be a transition from seating to sending. The impact of kingdom growth is more important as a measure. Missional churches give themselves away rather than serve their own needs

Tweet

Relevance: 100%

Book: "quoted in "Preaching to a post-everything world"" Buy from www.amazon.co.uk or www.amazon.com

Author: Henri Nouwen

Quote: We also like easy victories: growth without crisis, healing without pains, the resurrection without the cross.

Tweet

Relevance: 100%

Author: Unknown

Quote: Why membership? 1. A Biblical Reason: It is a visible expression of a Spiritual Reality. Christ is committed to the church. I Corinthians. 12:27 "Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it." The more spiritually mature you are, the more you will love the church in spite of her faults and imperfections. ".Christ loved the church and he gave his life for it." Ephesians 5:25 2. A Cultural Reason: It is an antidote to our society. We live in an age where very few want to be committed to anything. a job. a marriage. a church. This attitude has ever produced a generation of "church shoppers and hoppers". Membership swims against the current of America's "consumer religion". It is an unselfish decision. Commitment always builds character. 3. A Practical Reason: It defines who can be counted on. Every team must have a roster. Every school must have an enrollment. Every business has a payroll. Every army has an enlistment. Even our country takes a census and requires voter registration. Membership helps us define who can be counted on. 4. A Personal Reason: It produces growth The New Testament places a major emphasis on the need for Christians to be accountable to each other for spiritual growth. You cannot be accountable when you're not committed to any specific church family. Did you know that there are 39 "one another" commands that cannot be fulfilled without a commitment to a specific church family?

Tweet

Relevance: 100%

Author: Viktor Frankl

Quote: Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Tweet

Relevance: 100%

Author: John Piper

Quote: One of the great diseases of our day is triviality. The things with which most people spend most of their time are utterly trivial. And what makes this a disease is that we who were created in the image of God were meant to live for magnificent causes. None of us is really content with the trivial pursuits of the world. Our souls will not be satisfied with trifles. Why is there a whole section of the newspaper devoted to sport, and almost nothing devoted to the greatest story in the universe, the growth and spread of the church of Jesus Christ? It is madness, sheer madness, that insignificant games should occupy such a central role in our culture. It is simply one of many signs that we are enslaved to trivialities.

Webpage: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByScripture/45/448_Ruth_The_Best_Is_Yet_to_Come/

Tweet

Relevance: 100%

Quote: Unused Spiritual Resources During Superbowl XXXVII, FedEx ran a commercial that spoofed the movie Castaway, in which Tom Hanks played a FedEx worker whose company plane went down, stranding him on a desert island for years. Looking like the bedraggled Hanks in the movie, the FedEx employee in the commercial goes up to the door of a suburban home, package in hand. When the lady comes to the door, he explains that he survived five years on a deserted island, and during that whole time he kept this package in order to deliver it to her. She gives a simple, "Thank you." But he is curious about what is in the package that he has been protecting for years. He says, "If I may ask, what was in that package after all?" She opens it and shows him the contents, saying, "Oh, nothing really. Just a satellite telephone, a global positioning device, a compass, a water purifier, and some seeds." Like the contents in this package, the resources for growth and strength are available for every Christian who will take advantage of them.

Webpage: www.sermoncentral.com/sermon.asp?SermonID=68042&Sermon%20How%20to%20Get%20the%20Most%20out%20of%20Your%20Bible%20Reading%20by%20Jerry%20Shirley

Tweet