Generally, here's my Year 2017 summarized in various forms...
Also, it you're interested in what I picked up from previous years (especially 2016), click here.
Quotes from Various Sources
1. You don't have to worry about what people say about you, but what people say about you that is true. - Brian Houston (senior pastor, Hillsong Church) in an interview with Carey Nieuwhof (Canadian pastor and leadership guru.)
2. Leaders who stop believing the best about people stop receiving the best from people. - Carey Nieuwhof
3. Growth has more to do with your attitude than your budget - from an e-book called The Senior Pastor's Guide to Breaking Growth Barriers. I shared this book here.
4. You can disagree with my choices all you can; but judging my choices won't change yours. - from Hell On Wheels (TV Show) Season 2, Episode 7.
5. While describing the nature of a fallen world, the script writer of Hell On Wheels in Season 3 episode 2 says, "Every man here carries a gun, which can be had for as little as 3 dollars, and a knife and goes to church on Sunday."
6. Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it. - Tim Keller
7. For in the beginning of things is often to be found their end. (Salem, TV show, Season 2 episode 1).
8. Nobody here does anything to be nice. The quicker you learn that, the longer you survive. - UnREAL season one episode 9.
9. There is nothing (evil) a man cannot do once he accepts the fact that there is no God. - from Don't Breathe (movie).
10. You cannot win a war without a general. - Tyrant (TV Show) season 2.
11. Billy Graham’s Rules for effective Christian ministry:
(a) Operate with financial transparency.
(b) Avoid even the appearance of sexual immorality.
(c) Avoid criticizing other pastors and churches.
(d) Be painstakingly honest in all publicity.
12. We don’t want to become a company for everything, we want to become a platform for everything. And in fact we’ve even moved on from using the word platform. We now use the word raft because platform is something which sits still. A raft is something which moves. And the world that we’re in today is moving at a particularly rapid pace - Bob Collymore, Safaricom CEO
13. If you cannot be honest with yourself, how can you get the truth out of anyone else? - Quantico (TV Show)
14. We should notice that there is a big difference between being present and being in the presence of God - Kim Walker-Smith (while performing THRONE ROOM at Worship Central's New Song Cafe)
15. Everything is food for something else - Carl in The Walking Dead Season 2, Episode 7
16. Judas Iscariot was not a godly man who had a bad day, but an ungodly man who got exposed on one day - Pst. Mark Driscoll
17. Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God. But only he who sees, takes off his shoes - Elizabeth Barrett Browning
18. The highest expression of stewardship is obedience, not readiness - Edmund Chan.
19. Contrary to popular opinion, “No” is a complete sentence. - Scott Savage
20. Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, is the truth. - Elementary (TV show) Season 1, episode 10.
21. "The paradox of tolerance" refers to the act of being intolerant of intolerance. - Unknown
22. There's always a temptation to go, "Alright, well, let's write another 'Oceans'." But I'm, like, a firm believer that God's always doing something new, as opposed to the comfort of resting on laurels or resting on what's worked in the past. - Joel Houston (co-writer of Hillsong's "Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)") in their documentary, Hillsong - Let Hope Rise (2016)
23. Trust is such a delicate thing. Always easily clouded by love or hate. - Quinn in "Into the Badlands" (TV show) Season 2 episode 3.
24. Jimmy Kimmel on Las Vegas Shootings: “It feels like someone has opened a window into hell.”
25. A shark that does not swim sinks - Arrow Season 5 episode 1.
26. We should give not because we have but because we know the pain of lacking - Anonymous
27. It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another two new ones till you have read an old one in between. - C.S. Lewis
Lessons On Life and Personal Growth
1. Everyone - even the most forgiving and the most tolerant - has a breaking point. Just don't stretch them to that point. You'll regret it.
2. When you realize that you are not always right, you'll LOVE to listen to people who think TOTALLY DIFFERENT from the way you do. It will keep you sober.
3. Approach another person's weaknesses and failures with caution. Do it as if you're walking bare feet in a room full of broken glass. Because that's the same way you'd like people to deal with you when your world is falling apart. Yes, like it or not, it will someday.
4. The other word for a "tired mind" is depression.
5. "I have nothing to hide" is an understatement. Everyone has something to hide.
6. Don't rush. Your "next" may be now.
7. Not everything has an immediate "next". Dig deeper. Your next may be now.
8. The debate on what to wear and what not to wear is not about you or the clothing you're wearing, but the one you're representing.
9. He is no man he who has to be reminded or who has to remind others that he is one.
10. At some point, we have all said something regrettable - something nasty - something that we all want everyone to forget; but they don't and they won't forget. So we just have to bear with that reality and move on. That is life.
11. People can sometimes see holes in your character which you don't; so don't always put them off when they tell you some stuff. Go think about it. It helps.
12. Don't take me as I am and leave me the way you found me; take me as I am then rebuke my stupidities. Then you'll be a good friend.
13. Be yourself. That's the best gift you can ever give yourself and others.
14. Your freedom is always limited to what you know. The more you know, the freer or more enslaved you become.
15. Almost everyone that loves second hand things is stingy.
16. People love anonymity online because it gives them the needed courage to be evil without accountability. It's the courage of fools.
17. Misplaced passion is a dangerous thing, a violent master.
Lessons On Leadership
1. Through close observation, you realize this: that there is always the other guy under that great leader that seems wiser and better than the leader but doesn't really care about titles and fame.
2. I always think that the greatness of a leader is in how many people one has mentored and not the number of his or her followers.
3. When you're not answerable to anyone, it's not a privilege but a trap - a trap for impeding disaster. Autonomy makes you think that you are a god; you are not. You are human and you are replaceable.
4. A leader needs to trust people - whether those people are trustworthy or not - or he/she will lead alone. And leading alone is tough and exhausting.
5. Everyone has potential hidden in them it's the responsibility of the leader to identify it and help that person fully unlock it.
6. If you don't adapt fast after trusted members of your team move out of town, your team is likely to stagnate or die altogether.
5. The absurdity of being a "prominent public figure" is that someone can deny God His glory so that to guard his/her ego.
Lessons On Ministry and Christian Living
1. There are at least three types of Christians:
(a) Those who live by always being amazed by what God is doing.
(b) Those who live by always being threatened by what the devil is doing.
(c) Those who don't know the difference.
2. Prayer should not replace strategy and strategy should not replace prayer. Each one has its place in the journey of success. Carnality is when you replace prayer with strategy, and foolishness is when you replace strategy with prayer.
3. Holistic Christian teaching touches on three areas of life: a Christian's relationship with God, a Christian's relationship with their surroundings (people and things) and a Christian's relationship with their own self.
4. Your level of obedience to God is not ultimately determined by what you do after He's given you instructions to follow but what you decide that you'll do even before He gives you the instructions. That is called surrender. There can never be total obedience without surrender.
5. Fear says, "We've never done that before!" Faith asks, "So what?"
6. Everyone has a theology. It may be right, it may be wrong, but we all have a theology. We all have something to say about God.
7. The finished product.
That's what we all seem to see in others, but rarely in ourselves. That's also what God sees in all of us. But, of all things we are ever supposed to see, we rarely see it in ourselves.
8. Most of the time, we think we know what we want... until we receive it, then we don't actually know what to do with it. That's why God hesitates to give us stuff, until our purpose and what we want are aligned in the same path. Then, only then, will we know what to do when we receive what we want.
9. Every spiritual gift has its own way of discipline in order to maintain its effectiveness. Break the discipline, and you make the gift ineffective in edifying the church or oneself.
A prophet is given a grace totally different from a teacher, who in turn is given a different grace from an encourager. Once you understand your gift, also seek to understand its gracing and its disciplines.
Flowing within your gift and diligently being disciplined in it makes it effective as far as you are concerned and as empowered by the Holy Spirit.
10. God will let you have the leader you deserve; but it's not necessarily His choice. This means that God will allow you people to have a leader (whether nominated or elected) but that does not make Him the chooser.
11. Too much prayer without praise and thanksgiving is like always borrowing but never saying "thank you". Praise the Lord also, for that is the duty of man.
12. It is quite humbling when we realize that God has made us part of His story: His great story of saving the world.
13. No one is angrier at sin than God; and yet no one is more forgiving of sin than He is.
14. God will do it. Not because you are good, but because He is good.
15. In ministry, the surety and promise within your call is the source of your perseverance.
16. Three people are always watching you: people, the devil and the Lord. But they do it differently.
The one to criticize and judge you, the other to devour you and the last one to show you favor.
17. The less fervent the prayer, the more carnal the mind.
18. The longer we live, the more we realize that we need God more than we even need our own lives.
Lessons on Relationships, Marriage and Family
1. You cannot break a relationship habit under the same conditions that created it. That's why breakups are a necessary ingredient while dating.
2. Fall in love but with your mind wide open. Being drunk with love is dangerous, way more dangerous than being drunk with anything else imaginable.
3. Another observation I've made concerning married people: there is a very big difference between the wife that's appreciated in public, and the other one who's demonised in public.
4. Most of the arguments in relationships end with the man demanding that he be respected and the woman pleading that she be heard. It's a quintessential overflow of a very infamous peculiarity.
5. Once sex is involved, the mind is blurred to thinking right. The mind becomes "sexified".
Avoid the sexification of your minds, guys.
6. If you want to be a poet or a philosopher (or both), get into a very good relationship or a very bad one. The awesome or diabolic actions of your partner will always have an an effect on the overflow of your words.
7. The best therapy for a man is an ego boost, not psychoanalysis.
8. Relationships have issues. Marriages have more.
Lessons on Music, Worship and Singing
1. To all musicians, lead worshipers, singers etc: you're as good as both your public and private voice rehearsals. You may sit around the best vocalists and be trained by the best voice trainers in this world but if you're not teachable and you don't take time to practice both in public and in private what you're taught, your voice will remain as bad as it was 10 years ago. True story.
2. This world is filled with too many superstars, but less artists. Creativity is so elusive today.
3. You can be a great singer with a great voice but when you overdo your voice techniques, you just end up boring everyone. When it comes to singing, little is more.
4. If a song is helping someone reach God, regardless of how you feel about it as the singer, just sing it. Right then, it's God's song for the person, not yours.
5. People who sing are either very happy people or very sad people. Music only knows two extremes of emotions: happiness or sadness.
6. If you don't delight in the exactness of detail, you can't be an artist.
That's basically what I picked from 2017.
See you in the next blog as we start talking relationships and stuff...
Bonface Morris.
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