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 Humor
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 Chance
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. -John Ortberg Learning
Being deeply contented with God in my everyday life is a focused attitude. It is always available. It means practicing letting go of my obsession with how I'm doing. It means training myself to learn to actually be present with people, and seeking to love them. -John Ortberg Attitude
Sloth is the failure to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done - like the kamikaze pilot who flew seventeen missions. -John Ortberg Failure
When preaching is done right, it can change lives. When it's done badly, my failure goes beyond the merely human. -John Ortberg Failure
I have given up the idea that there is an opposition-free church out there. But I have gained something else - an appreciation for the gift of opposition. When it comes, I learn something about my motives. When it comes, I get to test my courage. -John Ortberg Courage
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. -John Ortberg Work
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. -John Ortberg Learning
Churches need to figure out how they will address the spiritual lives of their staffs and leadership teams. -John Ortberg Leadership
For most of us, the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them. -John Ortberg Faith
The most important criterion is this: hire someone whose character and humility and attitude you would like to have reproduced in your church and in yourself. -John Ortberg Attitude
Being deeply contented with God in my everyday life is a focused attitude. It is always available. It means practicing letting go of my obsession with how I'm doing. It means training myself to learn to actually be present with people, and seeking to love them. -John Ortberg God
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. -John Ortberg Learning
Love of learning led to monasteries, which became the cradle of academic guilds. -John Ortberg Learning
God has entrusted us with his most precious treasure - people. He asks us to shepherd and mold them into strong disciples, with brave faith and good character. -John Ortberg Faith
Politics, after all, is largely about power. And power goes to the core of our issues of control and narcissism and need to be right and tendency to divide the human race into 'us' vs. 'them.' -John Ortberg Politics
'Amusement' is appealing because we don't have to think; it spares us the fear and anxiety that might otherwise prey on our thoughts. -John Ortberg Fear
