quotes of the week #42

my favorite quotes of the week to share with you - 42nd edition!

“Peace begins with a smile.” – Mother Teresa 

“When coercion of any kind is used in the interests of the Christian message, the message itself is corrupted.” – Lesslie Newbigin

“But our primary role as spiritual leaders isn’t making people see eye to eye. It’s making sure our eyes are focused on Jesus.” – Mark Batterson

“Sometimes our technological expertise has seemed to top our moral capacity to use this expertise for the good of humanity. We have a capacity to feed all and yet millions starve because we seem to lack the moral and political will to do what we know is right.” – Desmond Tutu

"Leaders goal: Don't deny a person who has faithfully served your vision the right to pursue a grand vision themselves!" - Brian Houston

"When you change the heart of a parent, you affect their child or teenager in a way that is lifelong." - Reggie Joiner

“If you have to explain a part of your ministry in a paragraph instead of a sentence then it has become too complicated.” – Chris Brown

"The devil is a better theologian than any of us and is a devil still." - A.W. Tozer

"God is not an American. He made the Americans." - my 4 year old son. #proudparent

- Stephen Wagoner

do you have any favorite quotes? 

trash bags

(stats are from 2009)

1 billion people don’t have access to clean water.
The average American uses 400-600 liters per day.

Every 7 seconds, somewhere in the world a child under age 5 dies of hunger. 
Americans throw away 14% of the food we purchase.

Almost 1 billion peeps live on less than $1 a day + another 2.5 billion live on less than $2 a day. ($1 being exactly what we could really buy in our culture for $1! Truly $1)

so, more than ½ the world lives on less than $2 a day, while the average American teenager spends nearly $150 a week!

40% of people in the world lack basic sanitation, while 49 million diapers are used and thrown away in America every day.

1.6 billion have no electricity, nearly 1 billion can’t read or sign their name, nearly 1 million children are denied basic education.

by far MOST peeps in world don’t own a car = 90% of people don't have one.

But 1/3 of American families own 3 cars!

1 in 7 children worldwide (158 million) has to go to work every day just to survive.

Americans spend more annually on trash bags than nearly half of the world does on all goods!

Guilt isn't helpful. helping is helpful.

who's telling you what's next?

This was a great thing for me to read as a leader and just for my personal productivity. so, chances are it's a great thing for some of you out there to read too.

It was on Seth Godin's blog the other day. the link to the article is HERE but it's below in it's full 3 sentence entirety:

The Agenda

The job of the CEO isn't to check things off the agenda. Her job is to set the agenda, to figure out what's next.

Now that more and more of us are supposed to be CEO of our own lives and careers, it might be time to rethink who's setting your agenda.

and BOOM. 

who's telling you your agenda? who's telling you what's next?

start thinking like a CEO. look into the future. what's next? for you? and for your organization?

nobody else is going to do that for you.