Tag: Communication

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Start With Why Book Review by Jeff Bush

By Simon Sinek

  • There are leaders and those that lead. Leaders hold influence and inspire others.
  • 80% of people say they do not have their dream job. 
  • There’s only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or inspire it.
  • Most companies do not know why their customers are their customers, they erroneously think it’s because they have better quality. 
  • Every company knows what they do, that is easy to detect. Some companies have figured out the how. Very few companies have figured out the why – their purpose and belief, the reason they exist.
  • Every company or individual that is successful works from the inside out, they have figured out why they do what they do.
  • What a company does is obvious but the why is the real success.
  • People do not buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
  • Knowing your why is not the only way to be successful, but it is the only way to maintain a lasting success.
  • When your why goes fuzzy it is much harder to maintain the growth, loyalty and inspiration that gave your original success.
  • Detecting your why will help others that have the same feeling. 
  • A failure to communicate your why only causes frustration.
  • Great leaders start with the heart before the mind, they start with the why.
  • When a company does not know their why, it is impossible for the outside world to understand it.
  • Everything you say and do comes from your why. Your why is a belief. 
  • When a salesman believes in what he’s selling, there will be more sales. 
  • If you know the why, you’ll know what decisions to make. 
  • Trust is a feeling, not a rational experience. 
  • Leading is not the same as being a leader. 
  • Great companies don’t hire skilled people and motivate them, they hire people who are already motivated and equip them. 
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Simplicity in Preaching Book Review by Jeff Bush

By JC Ryle 

  • Unless you are simple in your preaching, you cannot be understood, and if you cannot be understood, you are of no good to the listeners. 
  • No greater mistake can be made than supposing you can easily be understood. 
  • The majority of preachers preach over the head of their listeners. 
  • It is not easy to write a clear and straightforward sermon that can be easily understood. 
  • To write what is simple, striking. and easily understood is a rather hard thing. 
  • If you are going to attain simplicity in preaching, you must have a good understanding of your subject. 
  • Do not preach on an obscure passage that you do not know or understand. 
  • Be careful of spiritualizing and drawing out something that the Holy Spirit never put in the text. 
  • If you want to be simple, there must be order your sermon.
  • If you do not understand a passage or subject, you cannot make it simple; and if you do not make it simple, it will not be understood.
  • Use simple words. Simple words, are not words of one syllable rather words that are commonly used.
  • Use antidotes and illustrations. Look at the sermons of Jesus, He referred to the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, the sheep, the goats, etc.
  • The best speaker can turn the ear into an eye, causing people to imagine and see.
  • You will never preach with simplicity without a lot of hard work. Take time to prepare and develop your sermons.
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Organic Church Book Review by Jeff Bush

By Neil Cole 

  • We expect people to come to church, when the Great Commission commands us to go to them. 
  • God did not expect for us to go to Him, He came to us. 
  • Since we are the light of the world, we should not be running from darkness but running towards darkness to lighten it up. 
  • The key to starting churches that reproduce spontaneously is taking Jesus to the lost people.
  • We should not be interested in starting a regional church, rather making Jesus available to a whole region.
  • Lower the bar to how church is done and raise the bar to what it means to be a disciple of Christ. 
  • The gospel says go, but we seem to stay. The gospel says take the good news to the lost, but we wait for the lost to come to us.
  • Someone said that we shape our buildings, and then our buildings shape us. A church building should not confine God’s work.
  • Church worship is much more than what we do weekly for one hour. The only time God mentions church and worship together was about a lifestyle of serving him 24 hours a day.
  • The kingdom of God is to be decentralized, but God’s people constantly try to centralize it. God wants his people to fill the Earth with His glory.
  • Apostles specifically means sent ones. 
  • The church in Jerusalem was told to go, but they stayed. God had to bring persecution on the church in order for the gospel to be spread.
  • Southern Baptist have said that only 4% of churches in America will produce a daughter church. 
  • We cannot compete with the world’s show. Wherever the next best show is, that’s where people run. 
  • The key to a healthy church is not more attendance, more money, nicer buildings, or better activities. 
  • Healthy disciples make a healthy church, and reproducing disciples make a reproducing church. 
  • Accountability, confidentiality, caring for needs of each other, flexibility, communication, direction, and leadership is better done in smaller groups/churches.
  • One reason churches are not growing today is because they have left out the outreach chromosome.
  • We are tempted to focus on models that work when we should be focused on the Master. 
  • The Ethiopian eunuch was one of the best evangelists we know. After being saved, he only had the Holy Spirit and the Scripture, but he went back to his people and shared the gospel. 
  • As Christians, we should repent of: 
      1. Underestimating what God can do through new believers
      2. Overestimating what we think our value is in the growth of new believers.