#discipleship

you cannot be friends either with boy or man unless you give yourself away in the process, and Mr. Pembroke did not commend this. He, for “personal intercourse,” substituted the safer “personal influence,” and gave his junior hints on the setting of kindly traps, in which the boy does give himself away and reveals his shy delicate thoughts, while the master, intact, commends or corrects them. Originally Rickie had meant to help boys in the anxieties that they undergo when changing into men: at Cambridge he had numbered this among life’s duties. But here is a subject in which we must inevitably speak as one human being to another, not as one who has authority or the shadow of authority, and for this reason the elder school-master could suggest nothing but a few formulae. Formulae, like kindly traps, were not in Rickie’s line, so he abandoned these subjects altogether and confined himself to working hard at what was easy. ↗

— E.M. Forster

#mentoring #teaching #change

Waiting is an art that our impatient age has forgotten. It wants to break open the ripe fruit when it has hardly finished planting the shoot. But all too often the greedy eyes are only deceived; the fruit that seemed so precious is still green on the inside, and disrespected hands ungratefully toss aside what has so disappointed them. ↗

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

#patience #waiting #age

A Christian understanding of the world sees a child's character not as genetically determined but as shaped to a significant degree by parental discipleship and discipline. ↗

— Russell Moore

#discipline #parenting #family

Most neuroses and some psychoses can be traced to the unnecessary and unhealthy habit of daily wallowing in the troubles and sins of five billion strangers. ↗

— Robert A. Heinlein

#friendship #internet #news #social-networking #friendship

Play to your strengths.” “I haven’t got any,” said Harry, before he could stop himself. “Excuse me,” growled Moody, “you’ve got strengths if I say you’ve got them. ↗

— J.K. Rowling

#education #encouragement #exhortation #prophecy #education

Never go into venture capital if you want a peaceful life. ↗

— Georges F. Doriot

#risk #life

We are not built for mountains and dawns and artistic affinities; they are for moments of inspiration, that is all. We are built for the valley, for the ordinary stuff of life, and this is where we have to prove our mettle. A false Christianity takes us up on the mount and we want to stay there. But what about the devil-possessed world? Oh, let it go to hell! We are having a great time up here. ↗

— Oswald Chambers

#hell #inspirational

I always have the feeling we are merely fearfully trying to save room for God; I would rather speak of God at the center than at the limits, in strength rather than weakness, and thus in human life and goodness rather than in death and guilt. ↗

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

#worship #death

Any religious person who says he does not really need human friends because God is his Friend is calling God a liar because He's the One Who says we also need human friends. ↗

— Mark Driscoll

#friendship #friendship

‎Those who aren't following Jesus aren't his followers. It's that simple. Followers follow, and those who don't follow aren't followers. To follow Jesus means to follow Jesus into a society where justice rules, where love shapes everything. To follow Jesus means to take up his dream and work for it. ↗

— Scot McKnight

#church #discipleship #faith #jesus #religion