Quotes from J. Oswald Sanders

If a Christian is not willing to rise early and work late, to expend greater effort in diligent study and faithful work, that person will not change a generation. Fatigue is the price of leadership. Mediocrity is the result of never getting tired.

If Jesus is not God, then there is no Christianity, and we who worship Him are nothing more than idolaters. Conversely, if He is God, those who say He was merely a good man, or even the best of men, are blasphemers. More serious still, if He is not God, then He is a blasphemer in the fullest sense of the word. If He is not God, He is not even good.

Leaders who want to show sensitivity should listen often and long and talk short and seldom. Many so-called leaders are too busy to listen. True leaders know that time spent listening is well invested.

God has His own training methods, and it is usually true that His way up first leads down, for the mountain is only as high as the valley is deep.

Not every man can carry a full cup. Sudden elevation frequently leads to pride and a fall. The most exacting test of all to survive is prosperity.

Sacrifice is the ecstasy of giving the best we have to the One we love most.

Our sense of humor is a gift from God that should be controlled as well as cultivated. Clean, wholesome humor will relax tension and relieve difficult situations. Leaders can use it to displace tension with a sense of normal.

The spiritual leader will not procrastinate when faced with a decision, nor vacillate after making it. A sincere but faulty decision is better than weak-willed trial balloons or indecisive overtures. To postpone decision is really to decide for the status quo. In most decisions the key element is not so much knowing what to do but in living with the results.

If done as God wants.' then leadership will surely include intercessory prayer. The saintly Bishop Azariah of India once remarked to Bishop Stephen Neill that he found time to pray daily, by name, for every leader in his extensive diocese. Little wonder that during his thirty years of eldering there, the diocese tripled its membership and greatly increase in spiritual effectiveness

Leaders must draw the best out of people, and friendship does that far better than prolonged argument or mere logic.

The secular mind and heart, however gifted and personally charming, has no place in the leadership of the church.

Courageous leaders face unpleasant and even devastating situations with equanimity, then act firmly to bring good from trouble, even if their action is unpopular. Leadership always faces natural human inertia and opposition. But courage follows through with a task until it is done.