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
In the context of worship, amusement is a waste of time and a waste of life, and therefore a form of sin.
The question isn't if someone will sign up for spiritual formation; it's just who and what our spirits will be formed by.
In community, we discover who we really are and how much transformation we still require. This is why I am irrevocably committed to small groups. Through them, we can accomplish our God-entrusted work to transform human beings.
I know that those of us who go into church work are to regard ourselves as servants, are to offer our lives as a gift.
I need an inspiration that is grounded in reality while thoroughly transcendent.
I'm not sure ministry can ever have the urgency it requires if it is not aware of evil, both externally and internally.
Skill at helping people grow spiritually, like skill at playing chess, depends on understanding and valuing differences.
Evil exists. Evil is real. One of the hallmarks of evil is that it seeks to convince its victims that it exists 'out there.'
We all want to feel spiritually vigorous, and we hurt when we don't. This pain is intensified for people who lead church ministries.
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.
My main job is to live with deep contentment, joy, and confidence in my everyday experience of life with God. Everything else is job number two.
For most of us, the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them.
To have my mind racing and my heart beating fast over glorious possibilities is very close to the summit of life experience for me.
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.