by Margaret E. Sangster
It isn’t the thing you do, dear;
It’s the thing you leave undone,
That gives you a bit of heartache
At setting of the sun.
The tender word forgotten,
The letter you did not write,
The flowers you did not send, dear,
Are your haunting ghosts to-night.
The stone you might have lifted
Out of a brother’s way,
The bit of heartsome counsel
You were hurried too much to say;
The loving touch of the hand, dear,
The gentle and winsome tone,
Which you had no time nor thought for,
With troubles enough of your own.
Those little acts of kindness,
So easily out of mind;
Those chances to be angels
Which every one may find
They come in night and silence
Each chill, reproachful wraith
When hope is faint and flagging
And a blight has dropped on faith.
For life is all too short, dear,
And sorrow is all too great;
To suffer our slow compassion
That tarries until too late;
And it’s not the thing you do, dear,
It’s the thing you leave undone,
Which gives you a bit of heartache
At the setting of the sun.
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Great necessities call forth great leaders.
~ Abigail Adams
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
~ John Quincy Adams
The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone. You develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it.
~ Elaine Agather
Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.
~ Susan B. Anthony
We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.
~ Margaret Atwood
I would rather regret the things I have done than the things I have not.
~ Lucille Ball
When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that person is crazy.
~ Dave Barry
At the heart of America is a vacuum into which self-appointed saviors have rushed. They pretend to be leaders, and we–half out of envy, half out of longing–pretend to think of them as leaders.
~ Warren Bennis
Good leaders make people feel that they’re at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens people feel centered and that gives their work meaning.
~ Warren G. Bennis
Managers are people who do things right, while leaders are people who do the right thing.
~ Warren Bennis, in On Becoming A Leader
The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.
~ Tony Blair
The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.
~ John Buchan
A leader has to appear consistent. That doesn’t mean he has to be consistent.
~ James Callahan, English Prime Minister, in Harvard Business Review, November/December 1986
A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.
~ Rosalyn Carter
Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.
~ Stephen Covey
Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.
~ Stephen R. Covey
A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.
~ Charles de Gaulle
Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.
~ Charles de Gaulle
The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor. That sums up the progress of an artful leader.
~ Max DePree, in Leadership Is An Art
Never try to teach a pig to sing: it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.
~ Paul Dickson
I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?
~ Benjamin Disraeli
The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say “I.” And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say “I.” They don’t think “I.” They think “we”; they think “team.” They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don’t sidestep it, but “we” gets the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.
~ Peter Drucker
Leadership is not magnetic personality, that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not “making friends and influencing people”, that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.
~ Peter F. Drucker
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
~ Peter F. Drucker
A fish always rots from the head down.
~ Michael Dukakis
Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
~ Dwight Eisenhower
You do not lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership.
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Quem metuunt oderunt, quem quisque odit periise expetit. [Whom men fear, they hate; whom a man hates he wishes dead.
~ Quintus Ennius, in Ex fabulis incertis
The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.
~ Harvey S. Firestone
Who has not served cannot command.
~ John Florio
Today a reader–tomorrow a leader.
~ W. Fusselman
All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.
~ John Kenneth Galbraith, in The Age of Uncertainty
Leaders come in many forms, with many styles and diverse qualities. There are quiet leaders and leaders one can hear in the next county. Some find strength in eloquence, some in judgment, some in courage.
~ John W. Gardner
As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.
~ Bill Gates
A leader’s role is to raise people’s aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will try to get there.
~ David Gergen
There are many qualities that make a great leader. But having strong beliefs, being able to stick with them through popular and unpopular times, is the most important characteristic of a great leader.
~ Rudy Giuliani
Look over your shoulder now and then to be sure someone’s following you.
~ Henry Gilmer
Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can be and should be, and he will become as he can and should be.
~ Johanne Wolfgang von Goethe
The only test of leadership is that somebody follows.
~ Robert K. Greenleaf
There is something that is much more scarce, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.
~ Robert Half
The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.
~ Theodore M. Hesburgh
Just as every conviction begins as a whim so does every emancipator serve his apprenticeship as a crank. A fanatic is a great leader who is just entering the room.
~ Matthew Heywood
Strong lives are motivated by dynamic purposes.
~ Kenneth Hildebrand
Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50% of your time in leading yourself—your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20% leading those with authority over you and 15% leading your peers.
~ Dee Hock
The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.
~ Eric Hoffer
If it’s a good idea, go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
~ Admiral Grace Hopper
He who influences the thought of his times influences the times that follow.
~ Elbert Hubbard
Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can’t be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people.
~ Lee Iacocca
If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall in the ditch.
~ Jesus Christ
The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.
~ Henry Kissinger
Leadership is getting someone to do what they don’t want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve.
~ Tom Landry
The ability to summon positive emotions during periods of intense stress lies at the heart of effective leadership.
~ Jim Loehr
To lead people, walk beside them … As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate … When the best leader’s work is done the people say, “We did it ourselves!”
~ Lao Tzu
Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.
~ Lao Tzu
To lead the people, walk behind them.
~ Lao Tzu
Leaders don’t force people to follow—they invite them on a journey.
~ Charles S. Lauer
A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.
~ John Le Care’
There go my people. I must find out where they are going so that I can lead them.
~ Alexandre Ledru-Rollin
There is no such thing as a perfect leader either in the past or present, in China or elsewhere. If there is one, he is only pretending, like a pig inserting scallions into its nose in an effort to look like an elephant.
~ Liu Shao-chi
No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.
~ Abraham Lincoln
The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.
~ Walter Lippmann
Leadership rests not only upon ability, not only upon capacity; having the capacity to lead is not enough. The leader must be willing to use it. His leadership is then based on truth and character. There must be truth in the purpose and willpower in the character.
~ Vince Lombardi
The leader can never close the gap between himself and the group. If he does, he is no longer what he must be. He must walk a tightrope between the consent he must win and the control he must exert.
~ Vince Lombardi
In this world a man must either be an anvil or hammer.
~ Henry W. Longfellow
You don’t have to be brilliant to be a good leader. But you do have to understand other people – how they feel, what makes them tick, and the best way to influence them. There are a lot of brilliant people in this world who are, and will remain, ineffective leaders. Why? Because they are so interested in themselves and their own accomplishments that they never get around to appreciating and understanding the feelings of the other people who are sharing this world with them. Sometimes, usually later in life, these talented, egocentric individuals suffer painful hardships. They understand, often for the first time, the kind of problems less talented or less fortunate people have suffered all their lives. They suddenly discover a new and important dimension: sensitivity to the feelings, emotions, and experiences of other people. Effective leaders don’t wait for life to bring them to their knees before they appreciate the kind of problems others are facing. Instead they constantly try to put themselves in others’ shoes – try to imagine how they would feel in the same circumstances. They are constantly aware of what makes others tick, and try to be helpful at the same time they ask others to help them.
~ John Luther
There comes a moment when you have to stop revving up the car and shove it into gear.
~ David Mahoney
The ultimate leader is one who is willing to develop people to the point that they surpass him or her in knowledge and ability.
~ Fred A. Manske, Jr.
Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men — the other 999 follow women.
~ Groucho Marx
Command doth make actors of us all.
~ John Masters, in The Road Past Mandalay
The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.
~ John Maxwell
People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.
~ John Maxwell
A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.
~ John Maxwell
All Leadership is influence.
~ John C. Maxwell
The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development. There is almost no limit to the potential of an organization that recruits good people, raises them up as leaders and continually develops them.
~ John C Maxwell, in The 17 Irrefutable Laws of Teamwork
Do not follow where the path may lead.
Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
~ Harold R. McAlindon
Great leaders instill a surging sense of purpose, articulate a clear vision, engage talent, purposefully plan, diligently execute and abundantly communicate. At its essence, leadersip is about optimizing people and their potential to advance a cause.
~ Kelly McDermott
The typical American of today has lost all the love of liberty, that his forefathers had, and all their disgust of emotion, and pride in self- reliance. He is led no longer by Davy Crocketts; he is led by cheer leaders, press agents, word mongers, uplifters.
~ H.L. Mencken
Leadership, like swimming, cannot be learned by reading about it.
~ Henry Mintzberg, in The Nature of Managerial Work
No prophet has been raised up who has not performed the work of a shepherd.
~ Mohammed
My own definition of leadership is this: The capacity and the will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence.
~ General Montgomery
A leader is a man who makes decisions. Sometimes they turn out right and sometimes then turn out wrong; but either way, he makes them.
~ Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Co., in Leaders are Made . . . Not Born, Leadership in the Office
I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers
~ Ralph Nader
A leader is a dealer in hope.
~ Napoleon Bonaparte
The good teacher … discovers the natural gifts of his pupils and liberates them by the stimulating influence of the inspiration that he can impart. The true leader makes his followers twice the men they were before.
~ Stephen Neill
To do great things is difficult; but to command great things is more difficult.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
High sentiments always win in the end, The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.
~ George Orwell
Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.
~ General George S. Patton
Be willing to make decisions. That’s the most important quality in a good leader.
~ General George S. Patton Jr.
Leadership skills can be developed, but the right to lead is earned.
~ Earl Peck
People cannot be managed. Inventories can be managed, but people must be led.
~ H. Ross Perot
Eagles don’t flock.
~ Ross Perot
A good general not only sees the way to victory; he also knows when victory is impossible.
~ Polybius
Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.
~ General Colin Powell
The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.
~ Colin Powell
The view only changes for the lead dog.
~ Sergeant Preston of the Yukon
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
~ Proverbs 29:18
An army of a thousand is easy to find, but, ah, how difficult to find a general.
~ Chinese proverb
Rough waters are truer tests of leadership. In calm water every ship has a good captain.
~ Swedish proverb
The leader must know, must know that he knows, and must be able to make it abundantly clear to those around him that he knows.
~ Clarence Randall
Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere as long as the policy you’ve decided upon is being carried out.
~ Ronald Reagan
Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience.
~ Admiral Hyman Rickover
The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.
~ Jim Rohn
A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well do even better.
~ Jim Rohn
It is a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead — and find on one there.
~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Speak Softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.
~ Theodore Roosevelt
The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
~ Theodore Roosevelt
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I have yet to find a man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism.
~ Charles Schwab
Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy.
~ Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf
Example is not the main thing in influencing others; it is the only thing.
~ Albert Schweitzer
Leadership is not so much about technique and methods as it is about opening the heart. Leadership is about inspiration—of oneself and of others. Great leadership is about human experiences, not processes. Leadership is not a formula or a program, it is a human activity that comes from the heart and considers the hearts of others. It is an attitude, not a routine.
~ Lance Secretan, in Industry Week, 10/12/98
It is impossible to imagine anything which better becomes a ruler than mercy.
~ Seneca
What you cannot enforce
Do not command.
~ Sophocles
Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small.
~ Edmund Spenser
An ill life will effectually drown the voice of the most eloquent ministry.
~ Charles Spurgeon
The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided.
~ Casey Stengel
Keep your fears to yourself, but share your inspiration with others.
~ Robert Louis Stevenson
The greater a man is in power above others, the more he ought to excel them in virtue. None ought to govern who is not better than the governed.
~ Publius Syrus
I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep.
~ Charles Maurice de Talleyrand
Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.
~ Margaret Thatcher
The man who goes alone can start today, but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.
~ Henry David Thoreau
The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out and meet it.
~ Thucydides
Become the kind of person that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position.
~ Brian Tracy
How far would Moses have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt?
~ Harry S. Truman
Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
~ Plaque on Ted Turner’s desk
There is nothing so annoying as a good example!!
~ Mark Twain
Communicate everything to your associates. The more they know, the more they care. Once they care, there is no stopping them.
~ Sam Walton
Be easy and condescending in your deportment to your officers, but not too familiar, lest you subject yourself to a want of respect, which is necessary to support a proper command.
~ George Washington, in a letter to Colonel William Woodford, November 10, 1775
Nothing so conclusively proves a man’s ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.
~ Thomas J. Watson Sr.
One word of command from me is obeyed by millions but I cannot get my three daughters, Pamela, Felicity, and Joan, to come down to breakfast on time.
~ Field Marshal Archibald Wavell, Viceroy of India
Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.
~ Jack Welch
A pat on the back is only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, but is miles ahead in results.
~ W. Wilcox
Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob.
~ Oscar Wilde
The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.
~ Woodrow Wilson
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Mary’s Lamb
by Sarah Josepha Hale
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow,
And every where that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go;
He followed her to school one day —
That was against the rule,
It made the children laugh and play
To see a lamb at school.
And so the Teacher turned him out,
But still he lingered near,
And waited patiently about,
Till Mary did appear.
And then he ran to her and laid
His head upon her arm,
As if he said — “I’m not afraid —
You’ll shield me from all harm.”
“What makes the lamb love Mary so,”
The little children cry;
“O, Mary loves the lamb you know,
The Teacher did reply,
“And you each gentle animal
In confidence may bind,
And make them follow at your call,
If you are always kind.”
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I have never met a genuine Christian who disparaged the importance of conversion, faith, commitment, sacrifice, Bible study, holy living, and the like. But I know lots of Christians who have not yet seen the importance of sound doctrine. It is important THAT we believe (spiritual concern); but it is also important WHAT we believe (theological concern).
~ Ronald Nash, Closing of the American Heart, page 99
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What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.
~ Strother Martin playing the Captain in the movie Cool Hand Luke
This communicating of a man’s self to his friend works two contrary effects, for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in half.
~ Francis Bacon
It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much.”
~ Yogi Berra
Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
~ Ambrose Bierce
Self-expression must pass into communication for its fulfillment.
~ Pearl S. Buck
They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.
~ Carl W. Buechner
Two monologues do not make a dialogue.
~ Jeff Daly
One can say everything best over a meal.
~ George Eliot in Adam Bede
The eloquent man is he who is no beautiful speaker, but who is inwardly and desperately drunk with a certain belief.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choicest words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech.
~ Edwin H. Friedman
Many attempts to communicate are nullified by saying too much.
~ Robert Greenleaf
It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes
English is the perfect language for preachers because it allows you to talk until you think of what to say.
~ Garrison Keillor.
I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I’m going to learn, I must do it by listening.
~ Larry King
Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
~ Rudyard Kipling
Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.
~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Information is giving out; communication is getting through.
~ John C. Maxwell
No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.
~ Montaigne
“And people laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas you have to use big words to express them, haven’t you?”
~ Anne in L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables
When you forget yourself and your fear, when you get beyond self-consciousness because your mind is thinking bout what you are trying to communicate, you become a better communicator.
~ Peggy Noonan, in Simply Speaking (NY: HarperCollins, 1998), page 8
One kind word can warm three winter months.
~ Japanese proverb
The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention…. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.
~ Rachel Naomi Remen
Brevity is the soul of wit.
~ William Shakespeare
He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.
~ William Shakespeare in Love’s Labour’s Lost
The silence often of pure innocence
Persuades when speaking fails.
~ William Shakespeare in The Winter’s Tale
Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible; and don’t sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.
~ Character in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion
The greatest problem in communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.
~ George Bernard Shaw
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
~ Mark Twain
If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now.
~ Woodrow Wilson
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in picture of silver.
~ Bible, Proverbs 25:11
How lovely on the mountains Are the feet of him who brings good news, Who announces peace And brings good news of happiness, Who announces salvation, And says to Zion, “Your God reigns!”
~ Bible, Isaiah 52:7
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Sometimes a combination of ideas or events come together to effect us in a way that they would not have on their own. I recently received the picture at left from a co-worker. Her husband works as an appraiser and had snapped the photo while out performing his job. The image has continued to be present in my thinking over the last few days as I have been asking myself what it means to live at “the corner of Mercy and Grace”.
And then I received H.B London’s “Pastor’s Weekly Briefing” in which he asks,
What would it be like if every “shepherd” looked across his or her “field” and found the most needy one in the “flock” and then took the time to minister to that one. You talk about a wonderful Christmas present. By the way, who is the most needy one in your “flock”? If you had the opportunity, how could you personally enhance the life of that individual?
I’m still working on the question of what it means to live at the corner of mercy and grace, but I think the actions suggested by London are a beautiful expression of its reality.
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- Best Amazing Grace Recording
- God’s Grace in Justifying The Sinner, by Robert Trail
- Jesus Surrender of Himself, by Andrew Murray
- The Cross of Christ, by J.C. Ryle
- Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, by Jonathan Edwards
- Grace – Select Quotes
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Last week my wife and I went to a Christmas party held in the home of one of my colleagues. Our host met us at the door and said, “Thank you for coming”, to which I responded, “We didn’t want to miss it because we heard that you were giving away $100 bills as door prizes.” We all chuckled at my lame joke and went on to have a great evening. But, …
It seems that The Lighthouse Church of All Nations in Alsip, Illinois is doing exactly what I joked about. During a sermon series on personal finances they have been giving out $1000 as door-prizes each Sunday. During this sermon series / promotion church attendance has increased by more than 10 percent. I can’t imagine why… or can I?
Thoughts?
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Well, it seems that I have been published again and I didn’t even know it. During the summer I attended a large book event in Dallas where the Bible Across America project was in attendance. They had me hand-write two copies of a biblical verse. My contribution was then combined with those of more than 31,000 other individuals to create two entirely handwritten copies of the Bible.
One of those handwritten Bibles sold this week on eBay for more than $15,000. Proceeds for the sale will go to Biblica, formerly known as the International Bible Society. The other copy will be donated to a museum.
I wonder if I should add this to my curriculum vitae.
I went to Wal-Mart yesterday to grab some Cockatiel food and some soda. As I walked through the front doors I was bombarded by Christmas decorations, Christmas packaging, Christmas mechandising and Christmas marketing. Almost immediately I felt an impulse to buy, buy, buy. It’s beginning to look alot like Christmas means that many people are going to be having those kinds of impulses.
Before doing your Christmas shopping, or succumbing to those impulses, consider the results of a new study conducted by Harris Interactive. According to this study, three out of four adults would prefer to receive a meaningful gift this holiday season that would help someone else instead of a traditional gift like clothing or electronics.
74% of study participants also indicated that they would increase their charitable giving once the economy improves. Given that three out of four adults would rather see gifts go to charity than to themselves, maybe the three out of four adults who want to give more to charity should do so now rather than waiting for the economy to improve. Check out the following video that offers an opportunity to do just that.
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Twice in the last week I have turned on the television to see once prominent television evangelists who had great moral failures and have now returned to preaching (and begging for money). One of these characters was guilty of stealing millions of dollars from contributors and having an extra-marital affair with a co-worker. The other confessed to having frequent trysts with prostitutes.
Now I hear that Ted Haggard is starting a church. What was originally only a Bible study that met in his home is now organizing into a church with him serving as Pastor. It seems like only yesterday his face, and that of his distraught and embarrassed family, was plastered across the television news for having been discovered having sexual relations with a male prostitute (and sharing his drugs).
I believe in redemption, but it seems that there are all to many people who confuse restoration with reinstatement. Forgiveness does not mean that someone should return to their previous position or a similar one.
What do you think?
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For many years I have used a copy of The Billy Graham Christian Worker’s Handbook: A Topical Guide with Biblical Answers to the Urgent Concerns of Our Day
Take a look at it it and let me know what you think.
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