Hybels Bill Quotes & Sayings

One of the greatest thrills in all of life is to feel the hand of God working through you and to be a part of the working reality of the church engaged in a movement larger than self. — Bill Hybels

The worst days of leadership beat the best days of being an onlooker. — 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

I believe that the great tragedy of the church in our time has been its failure to recognize the importance of the spiritual gift of leadership. It appears to me that only a fraction of pastors worldwide are exercising the spiritual gift of leadership, organizing the church around it, and deploying church members through it. The results, in terms of church growth and worldwide spiritual impact, are staggering. — Bill Hybels

Most people feel best about themselves when they have given their very best. — Bill Hybels

People will not follow a leader with moral incongruities for long. Every time you compromise character you compromise leadership. The foundation of firm leadership is character. — 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

It's incredible to realize that what we do each day has meaning in the big picture of God's plan — Bill Hybels

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

The best gift you can give a human being is an introduction to a God who loves them. — 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

Leaders need to have a ruthless commitment to resolving relational conflict regardless of how bad it feels. — 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

People won't give their best unless their leader challenges them to do so. — 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

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

Live each day with an open ear toward heaven, eager to respond to any whisper from God. — 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 question isn't, "What do I want to get done in the next thirty days?" but, "Who do I want to become in this next season of my life? — 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

The heart and soul of the Christian life is learning to hear God's voice and then developing the courage to do what he asks us to do. — Bill Hybels

It's time to make a decision: I will learn what disciplines are necessary to fuel my prayer life, and I will practice these disciplines regularly, without fail. — 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

Ten years ago, 15 years ago, I think the church would have been asleep at the switch. This level of activism and engagement with the needs of society by local churches I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime. — 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 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

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

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

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

Great leadership is by definition relentlessly developmental. — Bill Hybels

Busyness is the unrivaled archenemy of spiritual authenticity. — Bill Hybels

If your life is rushing in many directions at once, you are incapable of the kind of deep, unhurried prayer that is vital to the Christian walk. — 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

Leaders should never apologize for the strength of feeling that accompanies their God-given visions. God designed leaders to experience their longing, their desire, and their drive deeply, and to express it fully. And when they do, they energize others. — Bill Hybels

Life's great moments evolve from simples acts of cooperation with God's mysterious promptings. — Bill Hybels

Your culture will only ever be as healthy as the senior leader wants it to be. — 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

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

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

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

We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become 'self feeders.' We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own. — Bill Hybels

Delayed gratification is important first and foremost in training children. — Bill Hybels

Our conduct will never change God's character. — 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

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 in church is one of the biggest challenges that the Church is facing because without strong leadership, the church rarely lives out its redemptive potentials. — 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

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

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

The local church is the hope of the world, and its future rests primarily in the hands of its leaders. — Bill Hybels

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

Thirty years ago, we were in a movie theater and thought it was so cool because we were finally delivered from the horrors of stained glass and wooden pews. — 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

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

Simplified living is about more than doing less. It's being who God called us to be, with a wholehearted, single-minded focus. It's walking away from innumerable lesser opportunities in favor of the few to which we've been called and for which we've been created. — 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

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

Personally, I've never understood inactivity. Why a person would sit when he could soar, be a spectator when he could play, or atrophy when he could develop ... is beyond me! — Bill Hybels

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

You're a leader. It's your job to keep your passion hot. Do whatever you have to do, read whatever you have to read, go wherever you have to go to stay fired up. And don't apologize to anybody. — 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

There isn't a single motivation, thought, act, or word that has slipped out of your being and escaped the full, undivided attention of God. — 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

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

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

Leadership is the catalytic gift that energizes, directs, and empowers all the other gifts. — Bill Hybels

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

It's a huge responsibility to have influence and to steward it in a way that leads to God-honoring leadership. — Bill Hybels

God delights in pouring his favor on obedient risk takers. — 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

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

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

Effective leaders do not fear passion. They welcome it. But from time to time passionate discussions digress into personal attacks, and real people get really hurt. In my view, leaders must head that off before it happens. — Bill Hybels

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

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

Don't get so addicted to vision that the people feel like equipment — Bill Hybels

If it's the last thing I do, I will give every ounce of the rest of my life to helping leaders and churches get better. — 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