discipleship

We are less interested in the number of disciples and more interested in the quality of discipleship.

Friends usually bring out better versions of each other. People feel unguarded and fluid with their close friends.

The Roman Church has grown and grown, fueled by immigration but also renewed by two pontiffs who have seemed to understand what Tocqueville knew: People want guidance for their souls once they are convinced they have them.

Paul was terribly personal. The books I like are the ones that make you feel like you are with a person who is being quite vulnerable, telling you all sorts of stuff that is personal, and that's the thing Paul did that makes me like him.

If we are to have real faith, we must study the Word of God and discover what is promised. Then, we must simply believe the promises of God. Trying to believe something that you want to believe is not faith. Believing what God says in His Word is faith.

Older people make this mistake all the time with younger people, treating them as a finished product when in fact they are in process.

The free man does what he likes in his working time and in his spare time what is required of him. The slave does what he is obliged to do in his working time and what he likes only when he is not at work.

His Majesty has done absolutely nothing but waste his time darling around eating sweets, contributing to the boy's adolescent chubiness, and to the sense of the country's political drift. Rather than being encouraged to govern, the Shah's courtiers preferred to encourage him in his idleness.

If spiritual formation is the purpose of the church, then personal transformation should intentionally be the purpose of the small group ministry. Bible study is great. Fellowship is wonderful. Evangelism is essential. But changing and growing to be more like Christ should be the purpose of the small group ministry.

If teachers are uncomfortable at their own school, they will pass on their uncertainties or negative attitude to students.

Tasks don't have to be high-impact to be worthy of high effort. Most things we do in any given day are relatively low impact. The cumulative impact of thousands of low-impact test is huge. These tasks can be transposed into worship.

If our counseling is truly Christ-centered, then the topic of forgiveness will inevitably come up in the journey toward growth and change.

The more spiritual successes that Edwards experienced, the more he seemed to intentionally infuse his sermons with language deemed to move a person__ emotional center__heir souls__o spiritually and physically respond.

Many pastors would rather preach God's Word and keep their distance than invest in a personal one-on-one counseling ministry. Most pastors counsel because they have to, not because they want to.

[Mary] says her memories Will help those of usNewly come to our Lord__ mercy,To live in His light.

Mentoring is the cultivation of young adults, the tender caring for and nurturing of them so that they will grow, flourish, and be fruitful.

Edwards__ God was glorious, full of beauty, and seemingly uninterested in making people feel insecure. Edwards was a mystic, a man who didn__ simply write or preach about God, he experienced him.

Someone once said that Stephen Austin didn't like preachers at all. He swore that "one preacher could stir up more trouble than a dozen horse thieves." Matthew's Gospel reminds us that it is the role of a disciple of Jesus to stir up trouble by playing an active, resistant role in the struggle of good and evil, by resisting the ways of the world and its power bases _ economic, religious, nationalistic, politic, military _ which are most often in direct opposition to the ways of the Kingdom of God and the way of discipleship.