John Ortberg quotes

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)
Prudence is not hesitation, procrastination, or moderation. It is not driving in the middle of the road. It is not the way of ambivalence, indecision, or safety.
John Ortberg
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
A simple way to address hidden curriculum issues is to spend time talking with staff and key leaders about their spiritual lives.
John Ortberg
Nobody lives up to the norms that God had in mind when he first created human beings.
John Ortberg
At the heart of Christian faith is the story of Jesus' death and resurrection.
John Ortberg
A bad sermon is like a car wreck - everyone slows down to see what happened.
John Ortberg
When preaching is done right, it can change lives. When it's done badly, my failure goes beyond the merely human.
John Ortberg
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.
John Ortberg
The church is in the hope business.
John Ortberg
Both hope and pessimism are deeply contagious. And no one is more infectious than a leader. (John Ortberg)
There are dozens of references to God in the Scriptures for every one to the figure of Satan. This reflects a sometimes forgotten theological truth that the devil is by no means God's counterpart. He is a creature, not the Creator.
John Ortberg
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
You can only love and be loved to the extent that you know and are known by somebody.
John Ortberg
Over time, grit is what separates fruitful lives from aimlessness.
John Ortberg
Death is the prerequisite to resurrection, the new life God intends.
John Ortberg
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.
John Ortberg
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
Art is built on the deepest themes of human meaning: good and evil, beauty and ugliness, life and death, love and hate. No other story has incarnated those themes more than the story of Jesus.
John Ortberg
Sometimes in churches somebody will discover a particular vein of spirituality and seek to recruit others into it, or assume a superior position because they have found certain techniques - but no one actually wants to become like them.
John Ortberg
'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)
Churches can become places of cynicism, resistance, and pessimism.
John Ortberg
Normally, if someone's legacy will outlast their life, it's apparent when they die. On the day when Alexander the Great, or Caesar Augustus, or Napoleon, or Socrates, or Muhammad died, their reputations were immense. When Jesus died, his tiny, failed movement appeared clearly at an end.
John Ortberg
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.
John Ortberg
I don't have a problem with delegation. I love to delegate. I am either lazy enough, or busy enough, or trusting enough, or congenial enough, that the notion leaving tasks in someone else's lap doesn't just sound wise to me, it sounds attractive.
John Ortberg