John Ortberg
John Ortberg
John Ortberg, Jr.is an evangelical Christian author, speaker, and senior pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, California, an evangelical church with more than 4,000 members. Ortberg has published many books including the 2008 ECPA Christian Book Award winner When the Game is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box, and the 2002 Christianity Today Book Award winner If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat. Another of his publications,...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionClergyman
Date of Birth5 May 1957
CountryUnited States of America
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.
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.
The church is in the hope business. We, of all people, ought to be known most for our hope because our hope is founded on something deeper than human ability or wishful thinking.
Although the church has often been far too slow to follow his lead, Jesus' insistence that women, as well as men, bear the full image of God has had a way of sparking reform movements across the centuries.
Churches need to figure out how they will address the spiritual lives of their staffs and leadership teams.
Joylessness may be the sin most readily tolerated by the church.
Churches can become places of cynicism, resistance, and pessimism.
I'm more concerned about who you're becoming than what you're doing.
"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."
The church is in the hope business.
The single dynamic that helps people be most aware of God and most experiencing the fruit of the Spirit is gratitude.
Far more books get written about how to get more people in your church than how to get the people already in your church to have more humility and sincere love.
Preaching a series allows you to go into greater depth in the text, and spending several weeks on one theme allows the teaching to be absorbed more thoroughly.
Prudence is not the same thing as caution. Caution is a helpful strategy when you're crossing a minefield; it's a disaster when you're in a gold rush.