Riv and Thomas Jefferson
Feb 11, 2010 Quotes
There’s an illustration I have used for years when it comes to the substance and style of church worship services. I had no idea that I had inadvertently lifted the idea from Thomas Jefferson. I guess there truly is nothing new under the sun:
In matters of principals, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current. – Thomas Jefferson
This is how we try to “do church” at Riv.
Don’t Waste Your Life
Jan 28, 2010 Quotes
God created us to live with a single passion: to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all spheres of life. The wasted life is the life without this passion. God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work, not to be made much of, but to make much of him in every part of our lives.
- John Piper
Here’s a Video Version of the concept.
Or you can download a Text Version of Piper’s book for free.
Vision
Jan 27, 2010 Quotes
In honor of Apple’s (potentially) big announcement today, I thought I’d share an old Steve Jobs clip.
He models great leadership here.
My favorite line:
“This is a very complicated world, it’s a noisy world. And we’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us…and so we have to be very clear about what we want them to know about us.”
This is so true, not just about companies, but about people and churches.
Spurgeon on Preaching
Jan 13, 2010 Quotes
Thanks to Brad for this amazing quote by Spurgeon:
“Before I enter upon our text, let me very briefly tell you what I believe preaching Christ and him crucified is. My friends, I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to give people a batch of philosophy every Sunday morning and evening, and neglect the truths of this Holy Book. I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to leave out the main cardinal doctrines of the Word of God, and preach a religion which is all a mist and a haze, without any definite truths whatever. I take it that man does not preach Christ and him crucified, who can get through a sermon without mentioning Christ’s name once; nor does that man preach Christ and him crucified, who leaves out the Holy Spirit’s work, who never says a word about the Holy Ghost, so that indeed the hearers might say, ‘We do not so much as know whether there be a Holy Ghost.’”
-Charles H. Spurgeon
I always take it as a compliment when someone says, “you guys talk a lot about Jesus at Riverview.”
Quote of the Day
Mar 3, 2009 Quotes
Thanks to Manvotional for this amazing Teddy Roosevelt quote:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Happy President’s Day, Mr. Lincoln
Feb 16, 2009 Quotes
Thanks to MondayMorningInsight.com for my new favorite Abraham Lincoln quote:
“If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what’s said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.”
Nice.
Quote of the Day
Jan 20, 2009 Quotes
(via Will…make sure you click on the link to see the post title of the day)
“Why do some Christians bash Christianity like they’re not a part of it? When a Christian expresses discouragement with or disapproval of the Church, shouldn’t it be from a spirit of remorse rather than criticism?” – Abraham Piper
Quote of the Day
Jan 13, 2009 Quotes
“If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and to earnestly hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I suggest that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.” C.S. Lewis
Quote of the Day
Sep 9, 2008 Quotes
Just read this amazing quote on PastorHacks:
“I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.
You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.
You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.
Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.
And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.
You died when you refused to stand up for right.
You died when you refused to stand up for truth.
You died when you refused to stand up for justice.”
-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
From the sermon “But, If Not” delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church on November 5, 1967.
Quote of the Day
Apr 25, 2008 Quotes
“Leadership is relieving people of their excuses as to why they can’t or shouldn’t do what needs to be done.”
- Bob Hyatt
