PHILLIPSANTILLAN.COM

Author: Phillip Santillan

  • Book RE_review: The Top Ten Mistakes Leaders Make

    105413lgWhenever I read this book, it’s always a constant battle to resist pointing my finger to people who have violated these principles.  While some of the stories shared in the book appear to be a page taken out my my life, it took intentionality and some humble-pie to find out what I believe are things I needed to hear. One of these days I hope to be able to pass down experiences in leadership like Hans Finzel has done in this book.

    It should be stated that in my earlier review, I mentioned that I had some theological differences with Finzel.  While I may tend to be less “Calvinistic” I have found that I agree with him a little more on the position of “apostolic-style” leadership.

    So without wasting anymore time, let me just share a couple of quotes that stuck with me this time through:

    • Great leaders forget what it feels like to be led.  Some have never even experienced “followership,” because they have led from the moment they were born – right out of the womb, bossing Mom and Dad around!
    • One blatantly irritating practice  of some leaders…is the use of knowledge – or really the lack therof – to keep people in line and in place.
    • “The true leader will have no desire to lord it over God’s heritage, but will be humble, gentle, self-sacrificing, and altogether ready to follow as to lead, when the Spirit makes it clear that a wiser and more gifted man than himself has appeared.” -A.W. Tozer
    • …we will only impact people spiritually and permanently by that one-on-one contact that can’t be substituted.
    • …top executives spend roughly 90 percent of their time concerned with the messiness of people problems (Bennis & Nanus)
    • When all is said and done, the crowns of my achievements will not be the systems I managed,  the things O wrote, the structures I built, but the people I personally, permanently influenced through direct contact.
    • When we become too preoccupied with policy, procedure, and the fine-tuning of conformity to organizational standards, in effect, we squeeze out some of our most gifted people.
    • “My greatest fear is that our best days were our past days.  I loathe the thought that we should fade into irrelevance.”
    • …dictator style of leadership is…”I know the answers, because I have been given special insight, knowledge, and position.  Therefore, I will determine our direction, for I am the leader and I know best.”
    • …fundamental beliefs about leadership: The greatest ides bubble up from the workers.
    • A man flattened by an opponent can get up again.  A man flattened by conformity stays down for good.
    • I gave him the project, and then I took it back from him.  And that is what dirty delegation is all about…dirty delegations is…making decisions behind the backs of those to whom work is delegated.
    • Dictators nver delegate, they just look for the weak-willed who can implement their every desire.
    • The longer you lead, the less you remember what it was like to follow.
    • Don’t do other people’s work for them.
    • We can never communicate enough in our organizations.
    • Sooner or later you must put your plans down in writing and spell out your direction clearly.
    • There is never a time when more in-house communication is needed that when you first become a leader.
    • Effective leadership has more to do with listening than with talking.
    • Followers want to communicate to their leaders.  If you fail to listen to them, their very effectiveness and job satisfaction will be in jeopardy.
    • Whether dealing with followers and leaders, new employees or old, there are people who fit in organizations and others who don’t.
    • If it works, it’s obsolete.
    • Younger people are not just interested in investing their lives in the maintaining or fostering of institutional structures.  They want to go where the action is, they want to make a difference, they want to work in flat organizations, and they want to be in control of their destinies.

    Now that my ego has been bruised, I’m looking forward to being a better leader.

    Soli Deo Gloria

  • Book Review: The Principal of the Path by Andy Stanley

    _200_350_Book.41.coverWith all the books that I’ve been reading recently, this one seemingly is the one that sums up the main theme of what I’m re-discovering. I use the word “re-discovering” on purpose.  What Andy writes about in this book is simple. It’s so simple that when I tell you, you’ll say, “I already know that!”  It’s so simple…

    Ridiculously Simple

    Here it is:

    Attention establishes direction which in turn determines destination.

    In other words, it’s the advice your momma always gave you.  It’s the result of hind-sight, which we all know is 20/20.  But what I appreciate about this book was not about WHAT Andy communicated, but HOW.

    The first thing I appreciated is that this book, unlike other books of this genre is driven by the principles found in scripture and promotes the “Principles of the Path” by the illustration of scripture.  In every section of this book, Andy seamlessly weaves principles of scripture into truths that everyone already knows, but hardly anyone follows.

    The second thing I appreciate about this book is Andy’s ability to “tell it like it is” but do so in a way that you know he’s communicating with the desire to see you succeed – not so he can stand back and say, “I told you so.”

    This book covers a lot on achieving your goals/dreams/calling/etc, but what I believe separates this book from “the pack” is the willingness of Andy to answer the question and reality that no other writer of these type of books seems to answer.  What is that question?  What is that reality?

    What do you do if you realize your dream will never come true?

    The reality is that there will be some dreams/goals that will NEVER be fulfilled

    I believe this book answer those questions. How?  Well, you have to read the book!  Remember, this is just a review, not your college Cliff’s Notes!  But here are some quotes to wet your appetite:

    • To get from where we don’t want to be to where we do want to be requires two things: time and a change of direction.  There isn’t a quick fix.
    • Direction – not intention – determines our destination
    • Today’s decisions are informed and influenced by their impact on tomorrow.
    • The primary difference between the prudent and the simple is not what they see but how they respond to what they see.
    • Our propensity to defend our happiness decisions with justifications that aren’t founded in truth is what sets us up for trouble when the road divides.
    • You can’t get to where you want to be in life until you are willing to admit where you are to begin with.
    • There are better decision-making strategies than simply following your heart.  The truth is if you let it, your heart will direct you down a path that leads to the very spot you most want to avoid.
    • Your decision-making environments are not emotionally neutral.
    • The best counsel in the world is wasted if our minds are already made up.
    • You will never reach your full potential without tapping into the wisdom of others.
    • We don’t drift in good directions.  We discipline and prioritize ourselves there.
    • Pause before devoting your attention to anything.

  • Book Review: Lost and Found

    Lost and Found: The younger unchurched and the churches that reach them

    When I received this book last week, I couldn’t wait to read it.  Over the last 10 years I have not only watched young adults disconnect from the church, but even struggled with the same sentiments that I know exists among my generation.  As someone who has dedicated his life to serving people who desire to have an engaging and maturing faith in Jesus, I can’t help but feel my heart break as I watch my peers and the generations that surround them become more and more ambivalent (or even turned off completely) towards Jesus and the people that represent Him.

    As I began to read this book, I quickly realized that this was the perfect companion to a book I had reviewed called UnChristian.  If UnChristian is a book about how unchurched people view Christians and how Christians represent the faith they follow, then this book is about the practical ways (and proven) that fellowships of believers can reach people far from Christ and far from the church with intentionality.

    I am not going to lie.  The first 2 sections (a total of 7 chapters) was a tough one to go through without feeling like your brain was going to explode.  There are so many statistics and analysis that the human brain can handle in one setting.  To the books help, they did a great job of breaking the numbers down in visual ways that “connected the dots.”

    The last section of this book broke down how churches were effectively reaching young unchurched people.  This section was a little easier to read, as it was both encouraging and challenging.  It was encouraging because you felt as though you were gaining some really good input into how things could be done at your local fellowship to foster an environment where the unchurched can be reached.  But it was also challenging because even though the book didn’t outright say-so, the change that is needed to reach a generation of unchurched people requires intentional and strategic changes in the lives of the people who lead churches – pastors.

    The book is HUGE on content, and there are more sentences underlined in this book than any I have read to date, but here are the ones that I think you’d appreciate.

    • Christianity will not die out in this generation or any other, but this generation is not connecting well to the current expression of Christianity.  And that should concern us.

    • …you should not just read this book.  You should spend some time listening to and talking to unchurched young people.

    • Exposure (to church) as a child was not a positive enough experience to encourage attendance as an adult.  For many, the probably had negative experiences…Poor attitudes toward the church that are established as children may be insurmountable, even with the natural curiosity about spirituality.

    • …the younger unchurched are not more upset at the church than the older unchurched

    • The younger unchurched are more open to hearing about Christ (than the older unchurched).

    • Groups seeking to build relationships among young adults will not be short-term study groups but rather long term commitments before becoming true communities with trust and intimacy.

    • …we are in a day that is “postmodern,” a day when people are tired of the modern belief that everything can be answered by science and reason.

    • They (young unchurched) like to study the “hard-to-talk-about” topics.  They love tough questions and despise pat answers.

    • In years past a church served those they wanted to reach…Now the church has the opportunity of reaching people for Christ by allowing those people to serve with them.

    • …we’d rather have messy relationships with lost people than not know them at all.

    • (On the topic of expositional versus topical teaching) “We are going to have this mix (of both) because we know that Jesus preached topically.  Jesus never preached an expositional sermon in His life…He always preached topical and He used illustrations and stories.

    • Technology must always be a servant to the Gospel.

    • Technology doesn’t make bad preaching good and it doesn’t make a bad worship leader a good musician, and technology doesn’t make people who don’t want to connect, connect.”

    Obviously, these quotes WILL be misunderstood outside of the context of this book.  When UnChristian came out, I passed it along to my key leaders who were serving with me.  I will be doing the same with this book.

  • Book RE_review: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

    5dysfunctions7

    When I first read this book I was new to organizational leadership.  I didn’t realize the true implications of following or not following these principles would be.  Three organizations later I understand that the principles found in this book are more than good suggestions for helping foster teamwork.  They are rules that must be followed if an organization wants to succeed.

    Since I’ve never done an official review of this book, you could say that this is not really a RE_review.  But this is coconut island…and everything is from my perspective!  So this RE-review  is going to take a snapshot of just some of the things that stuck out to me this time through:

    • Great teams don’t hold back with one another…They are unafraid to air their dirty laundry.  They admit their mistakes, their weaknesses, and their concerns without fear of reprisal.
    • Politics is when people choose their words and actions based on how they want others to react rather than based on what they really think
    • Concerning goals: “If everything is important, then nothing is.”
    • (No one) gets completely used to conflict.  If it’s not a little uncomfortable, then it’s not real.  The key is to keep doing it anyway
    • By being even slightly connected to formal performance evaluations or compensation, 360-degree programs can take on dangerous political undertones.
    • Team leaders must create an environment that does not punish vulnerability.
    • By building trust, a team makes conflict possible because team members do not hesitate to engage in passionate and sometimes emotional debate, knowing that they will not be punished for saying something that might otherwise be interpreted as destructive or critical.
    • …teams that avoid ideological conflict often do so in order to avoid hurting  team members’ feelings, and then end up encouraging dangerous tension.
    • …it is key that leaders demonstrate restraint when their people engage in conflict, and allow resolution to occur naturally, as messy as it can sometimes be.
    • …reasonable human beings do not need to get their way in order to support a decision, but only need to know that their opinions have been heard and considered.
    • …it is better to make a decision boldly and be wrong – and then change direction with equal boldness – than it is to waffle.
    • One of the most valuable disciplines…a team should explicitly review the key decisions made during the meeting, and agree on what needs to be communicated to employees or other constituencies about those decisions.
    • …one of the best tools for ensuring commitment is the use of clear deadlines for when decisions will be made, and honoring those dates with discipline and rigidity.
    • The enemy of accountability is ambiguity…
    • Teams that are willing to commit publicly to specific results are more likely to work with a passionate, even desperate desire to achieve those results.

    Over the years I’ve learned that sacrificing conflict around ideals among team members for the sake of “harmony” is only a vain attempt at unity.  Rather, this type of behavior only promotes unhealthy amounts of tension, and the conflict, in the end, is always messier than the conflicts that should have occurred.

    In the end, the goal of effective teamwork for a leader is not to stand in front of your team and have all the answers or see your team as a group of people who carry out your goals.  Rather, a good leader invokes the honest evaluations and even opinions of those around them, understanding that the goals set by a collective effort are always better than the decisions of one person – no matter how exceptional that one person is.

  • Book RE_review: The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

    The 21 Irrefutable Laws of LeadershipWhy a RE_review?

    WHAT IS A  RE_review?

    Simply, it’s a chance for me to put in writing my habit of proactively pursuing a life long passion of developing as a leader.  Since leaders are learners, and learners are readers, I have made it a practice of mine to always having the bible in one hand and a leadership book in the other.

    Tonight I finished my regular reading of John Maxwell’s The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.  Over the years I’ve gained so much insight from this book, but each time I read it, I am either enlightened to some principal of leadership that I must have overlooked the last time I read it, or I am encouraged in the areas I’ve succeeded as well as failed.  Because both success AND failure is the fertile ground for learning, I appreciate the times I take to stop and have moments of self evaluation based on the values and principals I’ve set for myself.

    So what tidbits of truth did I find myself uncovering or rediscovering?  Let me share a few:

    • Concerning the Leader vs the Entrepreneur: “People may be buying what he (an Entrepreneur) ha to sell, but they’re not following him.  At best, he is able to persuade people for a moment, but he holds no long-term influence with them.”  From this quote, I realized why Pastor who say discipleship is like sales always rubbed me the wrong way.
    • Champions don’t become champions in the ring – they are merely recognized there.
    • Major barriers to successful planning are fear of change, ignorance, uncertainty about the future, and lack of imagination.
    • …the deeper the relationships (with others), the stronger the potential for leadership.
    • Build enough of the right kinds of relationships with the right people, and you can become the real leader in an organization.
    • …people listen to what someone has to say not necessarily because of the truth being communicated in the message, but because of their respect for the speaker.
    • How do people react when you communicate?  When you speak, do people listen – I mean really listen? Or do they wait to hear what someone else has to say before they act?
    • Truth is the foundation of leadership.  To build trust, a leader must exemplify these qualities: competence, connection, and character.
    • If people don’t know what to expect from you as a leader, at some point they won’t look to you for leadership.
    • …who you get (to follow you) is not determined by what you want. It’s determined by who you are.
    • (the quality of leaders around you) does not ultimately depend on a hiring process, a human resource department, or even what you consider to be the quality of your area’s applicant pool.  It depends on you.  Who you are is who you attract.
    • Effective leaders know that you first have to touch people’s hearts before you ask them for a hand.
    • You don’t get credit for being “right.” Your success is measured by your ability to actually take the people where they need to go.
    • Great leaders recognize that when to lead is as important as what to do and where to go.
    • Reading a situation and knowing what to do are not enough to make you succeed in leadership.  Only the right action at the right time will bring success.  Anything else exacts a high price.
    • Success in not measured by what you are leaving to, but by what you are leaving behind.
    • You will be judged by how well your people and your organization did after you were gone.

    Good stuff =)

    Now it’s time to rip myself apart and be honest with where I need more growth.

  • Book Review: Put Your Dream to the Test by John Maxwell

    In John Maxwell’s newest book, Put Your Dream to the Test:10 Questions to help you see is and seize it, John tries to tackle the many questions about having life dreams/aspirations/goals and the path to pursue and hopefully achieve them.

    I’ll admit, the initial impression of what I thought the premise of this book would be didn’t really appeal to me from just a judgment of the cover.  I’m not one for your “self-help” pick-me-uppers ,which is what I thought this book was going to be about.  But as I began to read I was more than pleasantly surprised.

    As I read this book, I began to realize that the word “Dream” here can be replaced with what I would describe as “Calling.”  My calling is directly affected by my relationship with Christ because I have committed to being someone who “Delights in the Lord“, allowing Him to give me the “Desires of my Heart.”  It may just be a matter of semantics, but it made all the difference to me.

    Personally, this book touches specifically on just a part of the spectrum good leadership (which is my favorite subject of study at the current moment) or what Covey would call a “Highly Effective Person.”  The idea of a dream is what drives the human nature.  Some “experts” of personal development call it “seeing with the end in mind”.  In the Christian world, it has even been called in a round-about way, “Holy Discontent.”  In normal circumstances this book might have been a snoozer for me, but at this particular juncture in life, evaluating my “Dream” is exactly what I needed – and this book had a lot to offer.

    Here are just a few quotes:

    • …a dream is an inspiring picture of the future that energizes your mind, will, and emotions, empowering you to do everything you can to achieve it.
    • Failure is the price we must pay to achieve success.
    • Followers don’t give their best to something they don’t understand.
    • Yes, we do need to aim high.  However, we don’t have the ability to attain whatever we seek.  I don’t possess the ability to achieve every potential I can imagine. I don’t believe that I can achieve any goal. That is not reality.
    • …you have to take a realistic look at yourself to know where your habits are taking you.
    • …complacency kills passion.  It reduces us to average.
    • It is impossible for me to ignore the reality of my present position and be successful.
    • Successful people think differently from unsuccessful people, especially in the area of failure.  They see it as a regular part of success, and they get over it.
    • The great men and women of history were not great because of what they earned and owned.  They were great because they gave themselves to people and causes that lived beyond them.

    I really needed this book at this time in my life, and I was glad to have read it and gained some insightful wisdom on how to approach the journey of going after my “Dream.”

    Got dreams?

  • Book Review: The American Patriot’s Almanac

    When I received my first book as Thomas Nelson book review blogger, I was excited. What I received in the mail was The American Patriot’s Almanac: Daily Readings on America.

    The first thing I noticed was that this book was really well made. It has a sturdy Red cloth binding and the artwork on the front was embossed. I thought to myself, “This would make an amazing coffee table book!”

    As a person who loves American history (mostly in part because my Filipino heritage is steeped in American patriotism, dating back to my ancestors who fought in World War II) I was looking forward to opening this book. Once I began reading I saw that this was more than just a conversational piece of a lavish version of Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader.

    The introduction alone will leave you feeling a sense of Patriotism that drove our forefathers to their resolves to make America the “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.” Now I know that these are probably biased feelings, so let me just give you a few reasons who I actually like this book (which I don’t have to say. Read this if you don’t believe me)

    • You say “I don’t like reading!” That’s ok. This is sectioned out so you have a simple one page per day reading. It’s like a daily devotional for the history buff.
    • Even though the book is published by a company that publishes many “Christian” titles, this does not skew itself in that way. Any reference to Christianity is simply because it is a reference to the faith of our founding fathers. This makes it a great gift for anyone.
    • For the History buff, this thing is packed with unabridged documents like the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Emancipation Proclamation.

    Did I mention the cool red cloth binding with gold letters? Go ahead and pick this one up for you or a history buff friend. Thank me later.

  • Book Review: The Feiner Points of Leadership

    If there is one book I could say would most practically help every Pastor, both lead and associate, function in a healthy way, this would be it. I’ll be honest and say that if I knew what I have just read in this book before going into the “workforce”, I wouldn’t have had to learn most of these principles “The Hard Way.” Notice I didn’t say “ministry”. Why? Because this book isn’t written to Guys in ministry. It was written to people out in the secular workforce. But…all the “Feiner Points” apply to healthy, functioning leadership because Pastoring/Ministering is leadership.

    The subtitle of this book is, “The 50 Basic Laws That Will Make People WANT to Perform Better for You” but this book is so much more than that. When picking up the book, you can feel like this is going to be ANOTHER book on leadership. I’ve read tons of those, and while I was excited to read this book because of another pastor who said he liked it, I was a little skeptical of what this was going to bring new to the table.

    “The Feiner Points…” is more than a typical leadership book. It’s a book about “follow-ship”. Not many of us are or will be the CEO or “Top Executive in our field, but almost all of us are subordinates. This book is great for giving practical principles for success as a leader who is subordinate to someone else.

    Here are some of my favorite quotes:

    • Leadership can never be something practiced by an individual in isolation.
    • …leadership is like an iceberg: Ninety percent of it is hidden below the surface
    • …every High-Performance Leader…had both strong management and strong leadership skills
    • …an imbalance between leadership and management can lead to problems not just for individuals, but also for an entire organization
    • To lead your people, you must know your people (The Law of Intimacy)
    • The Law of Intimacy does not mean you need to become friends with your subordinates, or that you need to socialize with them outside of work. You do not and you should not…knowing your people stops short of befriending them.
    • If a leader wants a subordinate to be committed to the succeess of the leader and the leader’s organization, then the leader must be committed to the subordinate – to his or her growth and development, and to what’s important to him or her both inside and outside the office.
    • (The Law of Feedback) It means telling a subordinate what he or she needs to do more of, needs to do less of, or needs to do differently to improve performance.
    • Bosses should encourage feedback from their subordinates, who will often have a much better idea of their boss’s effectiveness than the boss will.
    • To be effective, feedback must be camera-lense: he leader should indicate the specifics of what he or she observed that led to his or her judgement of the subordinate’s performance.
    • (In relationship to bosses) Respect the office even if you don’t respect who sits in it.
    • You must preserve your self-esteem and integrity by knowing how to push back, by knowing how to tell the Emperor that he or she is wearing no clothes…the hardest concept to get people to acept is that, as a leader, they’re obligated to tell bosses when they’re naked (not doing things right)
    • You should never apologize for leading a group of your peers.
    • Each meeting nees an agenda….the team must own the agenda for the meeting, which means not that the leader tells them that they own it, but that everyone has a role of shaping it.
    • If you’re having a problem with a colleague…you must assume you’re the cause and you’re the source
    • People look to a leader’s substance, not style, to validate their leadership value.
    • High-Performance Leaders…seek to create healthy conflict…

    Ok, there is so much more I could write, but you have to check out this book for yourself. If you buy it and don’t like it, send it to me. I’ll find someone who could benefit from it!

  • Book Review: Made to Stick

    When I saw here that Andy Stanley made his staff read this book and then covered it in a meeting, I thought that it would be something that I may benefit from. So I read it, and I’m glad I did.

    The basic idea of this book was to find out what were the similarities among ideas that “stuck”, or was able to leave the people it was communicating to an unavoidable memory of it. They analyzed tons of ideas and placed it in book format. Here are a couple of quotes that I got from the book:

    • We need to create ideas that are simple and profound
    • What we mean by simple is finding the core of the idea
    • The hard part is weeding out ideas that may be really important but jut aren’t the most important
    • Concrete language helps people, especially novices, understand new concepts. Abstraction is the luxury of the expert. If you’ve got to teach an idea to a room full of people, and you aren’t certain what they know, concreteness is the only safe language.
    • Vivid details boosts credibility
    • The story’s power, then, is twofold: It provides simulation (knowledge about how to act) and inspiration (motivation to act).
    • Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it
    • …visualizations focus on the events themselves – the process, rather than the outcomes. No on has ever been cured of a phobia by imagining how happy they’ll be when it’s gone.

    This was the book I was looking for when it came to the subject of effective communication. There were lot a great principle that I see can benefit not just my professional life, but my personal life as well. I will admit that I need to read through it one more time, because it can become a “long read.” Just reading back at the things I’ve highlighted tells me that I took too much time reading the book, but I am looking forward to it and not dreading it.

  • Book Review: Unchristian

    Since I got this book from Baker Publishing, I’ve been excited to put up a review on it. The title of the book, Unchristian, can be a little misleading if you don’t read the subtitle. In short, this book is about how a specific generation (defined as mosaics: 16-29 yr olds) thinks about modern American Christianity and it’s followers.

    I will admit, I am always skeptical of this type of research because even if you surveyed 1 Million people, you still not surveying everyone. Also, if you did this type of research for a project in H.S. or college, you and I both know how data can be manipulated to prove a predetermined theory.

    With that said, you have to chose to either take this book as an honest attempt to understand how followers of Christ are portraying Christianity, or you can choose to be looking at this book as another ways to say that you know everything and no one can tell you anything you don’t know.

    In their research, they basically came up with 6 basic themes that came up with the people who were surveyed, concerning Christianity and it’s followers in America.

    1. They are Hypocritical
    2. Too focused on getting converts. They feel like targets instead of people who that are actually cared about.
    3. We are Anti-Homosexual. We are bigoted to homosexual people and their lifestyles
    4. We are Sheltered
    5. Too Political
    6. Judgemental

    After reading this book, I was both saddened by how we have managed to look so little like Christ as a church “universal”, but also determined to to my part as a pastor to equip and empower followers of Christ with a biblical-worldview that will help them change the course of where the church has been going.

    With studies like Reveal, and this book, we are seeing that discipleship is essential if we as a church are going to succeed in effectively representing Christ. I recommend that any pastor who desires to have an effective ministry past the next 5 years pick up this book.

    Before I go, here are some quotes that I picked up from the book:

    • Mosaics and busters are the ultimate “conversation generations.” Then want to discuss debate. and question everything.
    • …we cannot simply dismiss the criticism of hypocrisy by saying “Christians are not perfect; they are just sinner just like anyone else.”
    • One-third of the people who qualify as born-again Christians embrace this idea (that “avoiding sin” is the main goal of being a Christian)
    • We rationalize that outsiders don’t want to become Christ followers because they can’t cut it. The truth is that few outsiders say they avoid Christianity because the moral standards are too restrictive.
    • Older born-agains need to look ore carefully at what Jesus teaches, that spiritual maturity is demonstrated in a life as an outcome of the condition of a person’s heart and soul, that behaviors follow belief.
    • …younger born-again Christians need to take an honest assessment of their lives and realize that they are increasingly poor witnesses of a life and mind transformed by their faith.
    • We cannot hope to shed our hypocritical label if our lifestyles offer no proof of the “fruit” of Christ-likeness.
    • Rather than being genuinely interested in people for their friendship, we often seem like spiritual headhunters
    • …we heard no favorable comments about street witnessing, where Christians intercept unknown passers-by to share the Good News.
    • We are learning that one of the primary reasons that ministry to teenagers fails to produce a lasting faith is because they are not being taught to think.
    • We do not look like Jesus to outsiders because we do not love outsiders like Jesus does.
    • It is unChristian to lose your sense that every one’s fallen nature affects all aspects of his or her life, including sexuality, and to forget God’s command to love people in order to point them to Christ.
    • Another reason sheltered faith is unappealing is that young adults resist simplistic answers. Mosaics and Busters relish mystery, uncertainty, and ambiguity. They are not bothered by contradiction or incongruities.
    • …our choices to live a sheltered life often leaves us unable or unwilling to help people who need Jesus.
    • If we allow the actions and attitudes of outsiders to shock us, we become either isolationists or crusaders, and neither extreme will have much influence on outsiders.
    • Keep in mind that politics only gets you,so far. You change people’s lives most deeply by transforming their hearts, by helping them embrace a passionate, thoughtful, personal connection to Jesus.