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" Jesus is why women have traveled continents, spent decades learning a strange language so they could translate the Gospel, planting churches, caring for the sick, educating the illiterate, and marching for the oppressed. "

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" When I teach the formal curriculum, I have the chance to think about it ahead of time. I can rehearse it. I can illustrate it with self-deprecating humor and humble-sounding personal disclosure. I can try to make it comes out just right. "

John Ortberg

I Can

Think

Time

" Spiritual formation is for everyone. Just as there is an 'outer you' that is being formed and shaped all the time, like it or not, by accident or on purpose, so there is an 'inner you.' You have a spirit. And it's constantly being shaped and tugged at: by what you hear and watch and say and read and think and experience. "

" The irony is that 'looking down on everybody else' is a violation of the law of love, which, according to Jesus, is the absolute essence of righteousness. "

" Evil exists. Evil is real. One of the hallmarks of evil is that it seeks to convince its victims that it exists 'out there.' "

" Preaching a series allows you to go into greater depth in the text, and spending several weeks on one theme allows the teaching to be absorbed more thoroughly. "

John Ortberg

Theme

Depth

" This much I have learned: human beings come with very different sets of wiring, different interests, different temperaments, different learning styles, different gifts, different temptations. These differences are tremendously important in the spiritual formation of human beings. "

" As a preacher who is fully human, and clearly not divine, I can't speak as Jesus did. But I do seek to speak truth that carries weight and authority. All of us who preach the gospel aspire to speak under the authority of Jesus. "

" When someone is in crisis, don't start by teaching, leveraging, or explaining. Just be with. "

" Ghettos and barrios and abusive homes and trauma wards may produce scarred souls; they can cripple more human spirits than they strengthen. "

" The day people around me stop questioning my character is the day my character begins to grow vulnerable. "

" I hate how hard spiritual transformation is and how long it takes. I hate thinking about how many people have gone to church for decades and remain joyless or judgmental or bitter or superior. "

" I'm not sure ministry can ever have the urgency it requires if it is not aware of evil, both externally and internally. "

" When people feel they're getting to speak into what's being preached, there is high built-in motivation to participate. "

" Prudence is foresight and far-sightedness. It's the ability to make immediate decisions on the basis of their longer-range effects. "

" Death is the prerequisite to resurrection, the new life God intends. "

" God has decided, for his own good reasons, that people are not transformed outside of community. "

" Churches can become places of cynicism, resistance, and pessimism. "

" Learning something new is a fabulous way to be refreshed. When work can grind you down, something about learning a new activity thrills the soul. It reminds you that the world is bigger than your desk and your to-do list. "

" The human longings that are deep inside of us never go away. They exist across cultures; they exist throughout life. When people were first made, our deepest longing was to know and be known. And after the Fall, when we all got weird, it's still our deepest longing - but it's now also our deepest fear. "

" Congregations shaped by the Scriptures generally have preachers who are shaped by the Scriptures. "

" In the context of worship, amusement is a waste of time and a waste of life, and therefore a form of sin. "

" The church is in the hope business. "

" The single dynamic that helps people be most aware of God and most experiencing the fruit of the Spirit is gratitude. "

" I wrote 'Soul Keeping' because we are taught more about how to care for our cars than how to steward our souls. But you cannot have an impactful life with an impoverished soul. "

John Ortberg

Care

Soul

" People cheer the Bible, buy the Bible, give the Bible, own the Bible - they just don't actually read the Bible. "

" Nobody lives up to the norms that God had in mind when he first created human beings. "

" At the heart of Christian faith is the story of Jesus' death and resurrection. "

" Women are the first witnesses to the resurrection and pillars of the early church. "

" Churches need to figure out how they will address the spiritual lives of their staffs and leadership teams. "

" You can only love and be loved to the extent that you know and are known by somebody. "