Quotes by John Ortberg

About John Ortberg:

John Ortberg, Jr. is an evangelical Christian author, speaker, and senior pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, California, an evangelical church with more than 4,000 members. Ortberg has published many books including the 2008 ECPA Christian Book Award winner When the Game is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box, and the 2002 Christianity Today Book Award winner If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat. Another of his publications, The Life You've Always Wanted, has sold more than 500,000 copies as of 2008. On August 13, 2012, John Ortberg's book Who Is This Man? debuted at #3 on the New Release chart at Amazon.com.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The day people around me stop questioning my character is the day my character begins to grow vulnerable.

John Ortberg

Sometimes, an inability to believe in Satan reflects a larger inability to believe in a spiritual plane at all.

John Ortberg

People with the strongest and healthiest sense of calling are not obsessed with their calling. They are preoccupied with the Caller.

John Ortberg

People cheer the Bible, buy the Bible, give the Bible, own the Bible - they just don't actually read the Bible.

John Ortberg

One of the reasons I'm an interesting person to be married to is my intensely late-blooming self-awareness.

John Ortberg

No one wants pain. Not even long-time, mature Christians who want to grow. We will always find ways to avoid pain. Pain itself is a bad thing.

John Ortberg

The question isn't if someone will sign up for spiritual formation; it's just who and what our spirits will be formed by.

John Ortberg

We all want to feel spiritually vigorous, and we hurt when we don't. This pain is intensified for people who lead church ministries.

John Ortberg

When people feel they're getting to speak into what's being preached, there is high built-in motivation to participate.

John Ortberg

There are usually multiple messages that could be preached from the same text.

John Ortberg

Tithing is considerably less popular than words like generosity or sharing.

John Ortberg

Tithing is a bad ceiling but an excellent floor.

John Ortberg

The toppling of idols - even respectable, admired, best-practice, fastest-growing idols - is always the road to liberation.

John Ortberg

When someone is in crisis, don't start by teaching, leveraging, or explaining. Just be with.

John Ortberg

We do not need answers or formulas to minister in crisis.

John Ortberg

Sin is very important to the soul because sin is what disintegrates the soul; it's what attacks the soul. Sin kind of is to the soul what cancer is to the body.

John Ortberg

Sin is protean. It is a cancer that keeps mutating, and just when you think you have killed off one form, it turns out a deadlier strain yet is threatening your heart.

John Ortberg

Preaching a series allows you to go into greater depth in the text, and spending several weeks on one theme allows the teaching to be absorbed more thoroughly.

John Ortberg

What influences our behavior, and what our level of responsibility is, are very complex issues. And anytime we try to make this simplistic, we don't serve people well.

John Ortberg

Those of us who preach the Scriptures, along with being nourished by it ourselves, have to figure out along with our congregations how we can incarnate the gospel in our community, or we will preach to a religious ghetto.

John Ortberg

We may be unlovely yet we are not unloved.

John Ortberg

Author Bio

  • NameJohn Ortberg
  • DescriptionAmerican religious leader
  • BornMay 5, 1957
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionAuthor; Theologian