Leaders

"The test of a preacher is that his congregation goes away saying, not ‘What a lovely sermon’ but, ‘I will do something!" -St. Francis de Sales

"God measures your leadership by how you serve, not by how many you serve." -via Katrin Licas

"And I would say this, too, if there are pastors listening to this: Pastors, your job is [to] set the tone in this regard in the church. I meet so many people who go to a church where their pastor has never openly said he’s done anything wrong. And that’s kind of an old school concept that we have in church that, “He’s our leader and therefore he’s infallible.” And the Bible just doesn’t teach that. It does teach that we [pastors] have to live up to certain standards (1 Timothy 3, Titus 1), but we are to lead and be the lead repenter and be transparent. Your church is either a safe place to be clean or it’s not. And I would put that burden upon whoever’s leading it. You lead the way. And if you find that your people aren’t coming to you regularly and they’re not interacting with each other and really being transparent about where they’re falling, then there’s a real problem there that probably starts with you.

“We set the tone as pastors when we don’t openly confess our sin and repent of it.”

I think a lot of times we dismiss too quickly the criticisms that non-Christians have of Christians. I think we should really listen more. Because oftentimes, even though they tend to be generalistic and stereotypical, they’re spot on. And I think if you went outside the studio today and talked to as many non-Christians as you could and said, “What do you think about Christians?” they would all probably throw out the word “hypocrite,” and there’s some truth in that. And I think that we set the tone as pastors when we don’t openly confess our sin and repent of it." -Mars Hill Church