Carey Nieuwhof Quotes

If you listen longer than most people listen, you’ll hear things most people never hear.

Cynicism begins not because you don’t care but because you do care.

The remarkable part of Christianity is not that we have a Savior who came to deliver us but that we have a Savior who sees us for who we really are and loves us anyway.

Self-pity chisels into stone what discouragement whispers.

If none of us could do ministry tomorrow, what would be left of our spiritual lives?

A B-plus plan brilliantly executed beats an A-plus plan that never gets implemented, every single time.

Remember, it’s not your programs or methods as a church that are sacred; it’s your mission.

Talk to people you disagree with, not about them.

the staggering truth is that 40 to 50 percent of students who are active in the church in their senior year of high school will drift away from the church as young adults. Did you catch that? Not 40 to 50 percent of kids, but 40 to 50 percent of kids who are active in their final year of high school will walk away.

overwork is the most rewarded addiction in our culture. People praise you for working hard, and the praise feels good.

Our assumptions got us to where we are, but they won’t necessarily get us where we need to go. I’ve found four questions in particular are helpful when your church stops growing.

The gospel has always been about God’s story intersecting with the human story. The church is uniquely positioned to tell the best story of all. So do it, well. Clearly people are looking for a better, richer, deeper story. Church leaders need to bring it to them.

If the change inside the church isn’t equal to or greater than the change outside our walls, greater irrelevance is inevitable.

As I studied top performers, I realized they moved way past time management and were highly focused on managing not just their time but their energy. Usually they had one thing in common: they did what they were best at when they were at their best.

Workaholism is, after all, the most rewarded addiction in the nation. You can be fired for drinking too much, but working too much usually gets you promoted. It also gets you a raise. So you dump yourself into bed exhausted most nights, only to do it all again tomorrow.

When you do what you’re best at when you’re at your best in the best conditions you can create, your work comes alive. And so do you.

The truth is, no one will ever ask you to accomplish your top priorities. They will only ask you to accomplish theirs.

Informally at first, but very decidedly, we developed two questions through which we’d process every negative voice we heard: Is there a biblical argument in what the person is saying? Is this person the kind of person we are going to build the future of the church on?

Being around is no guarantee that anything relationally significant will happen, but not being around is an absolute guarantee that nothing relationally significant will happen.

Many individual congregations and some entire denominations won’t survive the next ten years. The difference between those who make it and those who don’t will be the difference between those who cling to the mission and those who cling to the model. When you go through a cultural shift as deep as the present shift, the mission survives but the model changes.

Pain, after all, is selfish. Drop a brick on your toe and see if you can think of anything other than the pain. A shift toward a self-centered motivation is a danger sign that there is pain in your life that needs to be addressed.

People need to be reached. The love of Jesus was designed to spill far beyond the walls of the church, not be contained within them.

Throughout the centuries, the mission of the church at its best has always been an outward mission focused on sharing the love Jesus has for the world with the world. That’s why growth matters to me (and to so many of you).

We’re leading people to Jesus, not to ourselves or to our awesome church. Keeping the focus on Christ ensures that genuine life change happens and lasts.

Churches in decline often think in terms of what they can get from people—money, time, growth, etc. Churches that will make an impact on the future will be passionate about what they want for people—financial balance, generosity, the joy of serving, healthier families, and of course, Christ at the center of everyone’s life.

If your church is a museum of 1950 or even 2012, the likelihood of reaching the next generation diminishes with every passing day. 3.

Most church leaders I know (staff and boards) overthink and underact. If you acted on even a few more of your good ideas, you could possibly be twice as effective in a very short time frame. A B-plus plan brilliantly executed beats an A-plus plan that never gets implemented, every single time.

Volunteers that merely do as they are told out of a sense of duty will never contribute like those who own the vision, mission, and strategy and have been given the authority to lead.

While there are some local churches that will be lost if we don’t change, there’s more at stake than that. There’s a generation that won’t know the power of people committed to self-sacrifice and transforming both themselves and the wider community through the Gospel.

You don’t need to die to your dream, because God hasn’t died to His.

No community should have better relationships than the local church. After all, our faith is based on a Savior who reconciled the world to Himself, forgiving our sin. What could we possibly hold against one another? And yet often the local church is home to some of the most fractious, passive-aggressive relationships out there. We have a Savior who came full of grace and truth, yet church leaders will often swing to either extreme: all grace, so issues are never dealt with, or all truth, so people get hurt. Many people love the mission of the organization they work for; they just can’t stand the personal politics and dysfunction.

If there is one piece of advice I have for leaders who are trying to navigate healthy, God-given, needed change, it’s this: Don’t quit. Persevere.