Bill Hybels Quotes & Sayings

I can write about prayer, you can read about prayer ... but sooner or later you have to fall to your knees and just plain pray. Then, and only then, will you begin to operate in the vein of God's miracle-working ways. — Bill Hybels

A leadership development plan has to address these three phases: Identifying emerging leaders Investing in the development of emerging leaders Entrusting responsibility to emerging leaders — Bill Hybels

Dignity does not float down from heaven it cannot be purchased nor manufactured. It is a reward reserved for those who labor with diligence. — Bill Hybels

God made you on purpose, for a purpose — Bill Hybels

The real deal is always going to win in the end. — Bill Hybels

Church is what you do. Church is who you are. Church is the human outworking of the person of Jesus Christ. Let's not go to Church, let's be the Church. — Bill Hybels

When God transforms the life of just one leader, that leader can transform a church. When one church is transformed, you can transform a community. And when enough churches are thriving, you can affect a region, a country, and eventually the entire world with the positive, life-changing power of Jesus Christ and the redeeming and restoring work of his people. — Bill Hybels

Nothing that matters in this world happens unless leaders lead it. — Bill Hybels

The mark of community is not the absence of conflict. It's the presence of a reconciling spirit. — Bill Hybels

The Christian life is one of faith, where we find ourselves routinely overdriving our headlights but knowing it's okay because God is in control and has a purpose behind it. — Bill Hybels

The Lord's Prayer is an excellent model, but it was never intended to be a magical incantation to get God's attention. Jesus gave this prayer as a pattern to suggest the variety of elements that should be included when we pray. — Bill Hybels

Whatever your quitting point, I challenge you to test God's truth and faithfulness by saying, God, I'm going to proceed, trusting you to empower me to crash through this quitting point and come out in one piece on the other side. — Bill Hybels

God in His grace will allow us a certain number of friendships that stick for the long haul of life. These friendships are a treasured blessing. — Bill Hybels

You cannot do leadership without a source of regenerative strength. What is your source? — Bill Hybels

More than anything, people want the reality of the discussion at hand. If what is going on in that building is the real thing, if the transforming love and power of Jesus Christ is being experienced, you can sit on a metal folding chair or in a plush theater seat. — Bill Hybels

The leader is the organization's top strategist ... systematically envisioning the future and specifically mapping out how to get there. — Bill Hybels

I would never want to reach out someday with a soft, uncallused hand-a hand never dirtied by serving-and shake the nail-pierced hand of Jesus. — Bill Hybels

If we were to boil down Christianity to its core, we'd be left with simply this: relationship with God. The living, loving God of the universe has spoken throughout history, and still speaks today - not just to pastors or priests, but to anyone who will listen. God will speak to you. — Bill Hybels

The tithe is a wonderful goal but a terrible place to stop. — Bill Hybels

Many leadership problems are driven by low self-awareness. — Bill Hybels

Church work ought to be at its core the work of loving people
like God loves them — Bill Hybels

Visionary people face the same problems everyone else faces; but rather than get paralyzed by their problems, visionaries immediately commit themselves to finding a solution. — Bill Hybels

The more varied the environments in which you exercise your leadership gift, the stronger that gift will become. You will become a far more effective leader. — Bill Hybels

Our minds, like the needle in that compass, can focus on a variety of subjects throughout the day. But in the end, when they're left alone to settle, they'll focus on the objects of our greatest affection. — Bill Hybels

This is the only leadership life I get, my one and only shot at following God the way I feel him prompting me to do so. This isn't some pre-game warm-up. It's the game, and the clock is ticking! — Bill Hybels

We will occupy a right and wonderful world only when God's values occupy our lives. — Bill Hybels

If you are anything like me you'll have to fight tooth-and-nail to stay in the game (evangelism). Because although the home runs have been invigorating, my batting average over the years is abysmally low. — Bill Hybels

Build something with enduring value. — Bill Hybels

I look at tens of thousands of church leaders who still do need a bit of an awakening. — Bill Hybels

I can usually sense that a leading is from the Holy Spirit when it calls me to humble myself, serve somebody, encourage somebody or give something away. Very rarely will the evil one lead us to do those kinds of things. — Bill Hybels

If you're living a yielded life, and if you have the preaching and teaching gift, and you're yielding that to God on a continual basis, that's one of the signs that you're in the right place doing the right thing for the right reasons. If you're doing something in the kingdom, and you rarely feel that, that's a red flag. Something needs to be looked at. Are you using the right gift? Are you using it in the right way? For the right reasons? At the right time? In the right context? If I didn't feel it consistently, that would be quite troubling to me. — Bill Hybels

If you are too busy or too proud to pray with your children, you are too busy and too proud. — Bill Hybels

Every single decision you make as a leader has an effect on the spirit of those you lead. — Bill Hybels

Religion is spelled 'D-O', because it consists of the things people do try to somehow gain God's forgiveness and favor. But the problem is that you never know when you've done enough. But thankfully, Christianity is spelled differently. It's spelled 'D-O-N-E', which means that what we could never for ourselves, Christ has already done for us. To become a real Christian is to humbly receive God's gift of forgiveness and to commit to following His leadership. — Bill Hybels

The nature of human beings is such that we tend not to drift into better behaviors. We usually have to be asked by someone to consider taking it up a level. — Bill Hybels

Pray when you're alone. Pray when you're with a lot of people. Pray when you're in small groups. Pray on your way in; pray on your way out. Pray in your closet, in your car, at your desk. Pray morning prayers, pray mealtime prayers, pray in between mealtimes. Pray fervently, expectantly, and unself-consciously. Pray when you're burdened, worried, sick, or brokenhearted. Pray when you're soaring, setting records, or dancing on a mountaintop. Pray when you're up, and pray when you're down. Pray when you're healthy, when you're sick, when you feel like it, and when you don't. (Especially when you don't.) — Bill Hybels

It's amazing how many coincidences occur when one begins to pray. — Bill Hybels

It helps certain church leaders identify the fact that they have the spiritual gift of leadership that the Bible talks about in Romans 12:8. Once you understand that God has given a gift, then training becomes more seriously. When you receive better training, you become more effective in the leadership position that God has assigned to you. — Bill Hybels

To be developed as a leader, failure must be allowed. Failure only helps us improve. — Bill Hybels

There is nothing like the local church when the local church is working right. — Bill Hybels

Our conduct will never change God's character. — Bill Hybels

Self awareness allows you to self-correct. — Bill Hybels

Nothing on earth has greater potential to change lives and carry out His kingdom work in your community, than your local church.There's nothing like the local church when it's working right. Its beauty is indescribable. Its power is breathtaking. Its potential is unlimited. No other organization on earth is like the church. Nothing even comes close. — Bill Hybels

We will probably have to pay a price for devoting our lives to building the kingdom of God. Jesus did. — Bill Hybels

If you lower the ambient noise of your life and listen expectantly for those whispers of God, your ears will hear them. And when you follow their lead, your world will be rocked. — Bill Hybels

Leaders are at their very best when they are raising up leaders around them. — Bill Hybels

Truly, spiritual courage is on the endangered character-quality list. — Bill Hybels

Legacy leaders are the only ones wiling to pay the price to fix a broken culture. — Bill Hybels

God wants us ... to talk to him as to a friend or father-authentically, reverently, personally, earnestly. — Bill Hybels

Obeying the Spirit instead of your own self-centered whims will lead you to places you've never been, challenge you in ways you have never been challenged, and invite levels of sacrifice you never dreamed you could make. This is the power and the promise of full-throttle faith, of living a life fueled solely by God. — Bill Hybels

You don't have to be any more talented, any richer, any slimmer, any smarter, any more or less of anything to partner with God. All you have to be is willing to be used by him in everyday way — Bill Hybels

Storms draw something out of us that calm seas don't. — Bill Hybels

He's dangerous because when God talks to him Bob will do whatever God asks him to do at great cost, even if no one agrees, if it's contrary to the way the stream is going, if Bob feels God is in it he will do it. — Bill Hybels

Religion is spelled DO. Christianity is spelled DONE. One endlessly works to earn love. The other simply receives it! — Bill Hybels

It's the great temptation for small groups of people to slide into a state where they're not quite telling each other the truth and they're not quite celebrating each other. Instead, they tolerate each other, they accommodate each other, and they settle for sitting on the unspoken matters that separate them. — Bill Hybels

Your energy and the ability to energize others is more valuable than your time. — Bill Hybels

If leaders don't have an antidote for fear they will be crushed by it. What is your antidote? — Bill Hybels

Enjoy every single day you get to lead because it will be over in a blink. — Bill Hybels

If you're a serious minded leader, you will read. You will read all you can. You will read when you feel like it, and you will read when you don't. You will do whatever you have to do to increase your leadership input, because you know as well as I do that it will make you better. — Bill Hybels

Most unmarried people have no idea what it takes to make a marriage work; they grossly underestimate the price people have to pay to build long-term, mutually satisfying relationships. And they fail to understand that the only people with the strength to pay that price are those who have plumbed the depths of their relationship with God, and have dealt with their own brokenness. — Bill Hybels

Vision is the most powerful weapon in the leader's arsenal. — Bill Hybels

Authentic Christians are persons who stand apart from others. Their character seems deeper, their ideas fresher, their spirit softer, their courage greater, their leadership stronger, their concerns wider, their compassion more genuine and their convictions more concrete. — Bill Hybels

We all have strengths, weaknesses and blind spots. In fact, an average person has 3.4 blind spots. — Bill Hybels

People join organizations, they leave managers. — Bill Hybels

Don't steamroll your way into a conversation before establishing any relational credibility. — Bill Hybels

Destructive fear must be stopped in its tracks or it will undermine the life God invites us to live. — Bill Hybels

One thing is that life's great moments evolve from simple acts of cooperation with God's mysterious promptings-nudges that always lean toward finding what's been lost and freeing what's been enslaved . — Bill Hybels

Develop your reflective will and gain better insight before you say or do something. — Bill Hybels

If you don't change your schedule, you'll be the same person you've always been. — Bill Hybels

Leadership grit begets grit. Lead by example. — Bill Hybels

My selection process is based on "three Cs": first character, then competence, and finally chemistry with me and with the rest of the team. Character. Competence. Chemistry. — Bill Hybels

When you get to the end will God say, "Well done," or, "What was up with that?" — Bill Hybels

he said we would not have to do this alone. — Bill Hybels

It takes a great deal of courage to follow another person's lead. — Bill Hybels

God wants to father all of us until we're dead sure of his approval, his guiding power and his promise of heaven. — Bill Hybels

We live in a world that is crying out for better leadership. — Bill Hybels

You have never looked in the eyes of someone who does not matter to God. — Bill Hybels

God is looking for women and men who are full on for Him ... people who have abandoned their own program and are just looking for how they can use their unique talents and abilities to further God's activities and programs in this world. These are the people God will tap on the shoulder and say, Come with me and we're going to do something great in your lifetime. Come, we're going to do this together. — Bill Hybels

I hate thinking about it, teaching about it, and writing about it. But the plain truth is that hell is real and real people go there for eternity. — Bill Hybels

Leadership requires a non-stop demand of fortitude from Day 1 to the end. — Bill Hybels

If you're too chicken to repent, then please don't ever say Christianity is for weak people. — Bill Hybels

One of the greatest joys of leadership is assembling and knitting together teams of fantastic people. — Bill Hybels

The only way to motivate people is to live a motivated life in front of them — Bill Hybels

Wise leaders understand that the single greatest determinant of whether followers will ever own a vision deeply is the extent to which whose followers believe the leader will own it. — Bill Hybels

Whenever you see something going well - whenever light begins to chase back the darkness that threatens to engulf our world - look closely. There stands a leader who is holding that candle. — Bill Hybels

Authentic Christianity is a supernatural walk with a living, dynamic, communicating God. — Bill Hybels

If there is ever a time crying out for courageous leadership, its now. — Bill Hybels

If the request is wrong, God says, No. If the timing is wrong, God says, Slow. If you are wrong, God says, Grow. But if the request is right, the timing is right and you are right, God says, Go! — Bill Hybels

It's one thing to see a vision; it's another thing to be seized by a vision. — Bill Hybels

Deep friendships are forged in the fire of pain. If — Bill Hybels

You can never underestimate the amount of energy and frequency you must give to vision casting. You can never underestimate it. — Bill Hybels

Life is too short and the world too compassion-starved for you to keep subsisting in situations that drag you down and curtail your potential to help advance the Kingdom. There's just too much at stake. — Bill Hybels

You can live and lead small, live and lead safe, live and lead selfishly, or you can pursue a grander vision. — Bill Hybels

Playing around is one thing; following an established regimen is quite another. It's true with exercise equipment and it is true with prayer. — Bill Hybels

Savor every day you have the privilege to lead. — Bill Hybels

How do you pray a prayer so filled with faith that it can move a mountain? By shifting your focus from the size of your mountain to the sufficiency of the Mountain Mover and then stepping forward in obedience. — Bill Hybels

Those churches have closed down or have been merged with a church that has a more positive vision. — Bill Hybels

Is the ambient noise level of my life low enough for me to hear the whispers of the Lord? — Bill Hybels

It's not the things I don't understand about the Bible that bother me; it's the things I understand with perfect clarity and don't comply with that keep me up at night. — Bill Hybels

God didn't make you a leader to respond to stuff all day. He made you a leader to move things forward. — Bill Hybels