Thursday, August 27, 2015

Drucker: not productive...

Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all. — Peter Drucker

Perman, Matthew Aaron; Perman, Matthew Aaron (2014-03-04). What's Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done (p. 43). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Begg & Prime: private prayer

Effective prayer in pastoral work arises from the habit of private prayer for prayer's own sake - or  better, for the sake of fellowship with God.

Since our relationship to God is the key to everything, it is the principle area of attack upon our Christian life. Honesty and realism are required of us here. The New Testament urges us to be "clear-minded and self-controlled" so that we can pray (1Peter4:7). If we are confused or hazy in our thinking about prayer, and how to ensure its correct place in our life, we are bound to fail in achieving its proper priority. If we do not inject a fair amount of disicpline into our life, we will be unable to control the contrary elements that continually militate against prayer.

Prime & Begg, "On Being a Pastor", p66

Monday, August 17, 2015

Keller: honour and fearlessness

Their greatest joy was to honour God, not to use God to get what they wanted in life.  And as a result they were fearless. Nothing could overthrow them.

Walking with God...  p231

Miller: chuch indoors and outdoors

...Acts follows a clear pattern: first the church is pictured indoors where prayer prevails;  then the church is pictured outdoors where the Spirit of Christ prevails through preaching and mighty deeds.

"Servant Leader..."  p50

Miller: simplicty and coping with unfinished jobs

Such simplicity of devotion  [trust in the Father's will, childlike devotion to Jesus, humility which puts others first] enables us to see our work with clear vision and to plan and act with sanity.  It also enables us to bear with the routine of daily work, with the knowledge that many of our tasks are left half done and even those that are completed are highly imperfect.  For prayer teaches us that we are sons of God with a Father who loves us not because we are perfect but because we are in union with Christ.

"...Servant Leader..." p49

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Miller: Your will be done?

He needs to break down our tendency to cry out in prayer, "Your will be done," and then to get up and still try to impose our will on circumstances.

...Servant Leader p44-5

Tozer: cultivate your heart first

"The minister must experience what he would teach or he will find himself in the impossible position of trying to drive sheep. For this reason he should seek to cultivate his own heart before he attempts to preach to the hearts of others."
~ A.W. Tozer, Tozer On Leadership

Monday, August 03, 2015

Miller: guidance and a closed mind

Put simply, why would God give me guidance when my mind is closed to some aspect of His will?

Heart of a Servant Leader, p30

Freedman: the problem of community for secularism

Freedman argues that there is a fundamental problem in secularism that will always block efforts to form the same kind of "thick" communities that religious belief provides.  Community amongst persons is forged only when there is something more important than one's own interests to which all share a higher allegiance.  And, Freedman says, "humanism suffers...from the valorisation of the individual."  When I am the final authority for determining  right and wrong, and when nothing is more important than my right to live as I see fit, tight supportive community is eroded, perhaps even impossible.

quoted in Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering, Tim Keller, p66.