Jon Tyson > Quotes

“Using religion in an attempt to manipulate God merely distracts us from the goal of our faith, which is to enjoy an intimate relationship with him.”
― Jon Tyson, The Burden Is Light: Liberating Your Life from the Tyranny of Performance and Success

“instead of being a people who have good news to share, news that could transform the world, we have become a people mired in the twenty-four-hour news cycle, fed a constant diet of hopelessness and despair. Our ability to dismiss the work of God in the church has become toxic. We are plagued by a lack of expectation and have begun to believe that this is all there is.”
― Jon Tyson, Beautiful Resistance: The Joy of Conviction in a Culture of Compromise

“Sometimes we hear about churches having honor cultures, but they rarely seem to be cultures where everyone is honored. The power dynamics work in such a way that the honor flows uphill to the senior leaders. Honor seems to work much as it would in the world. The most visible receive the most glory; the most gifted, the most attention.”
― Jon Tyson, Beautiful Resistance: The Joy of Conviction in a Culture of Compromise

“A Creative Minority is a Christian community in a web of stubbornly loyal relationships, knotted together in a living network of persons who are committed to practicing the way of Jesus together for the renewal of the world.[”
― Jon Tyson, A Creative Minority: Influencing Culture Through Redemptive Participation

“a man is an image bearer and son of God entrusted with power and the responsibility to create, cultivate, care, and defend, for God’s glory and the good of others.”
― Jon Tyson, The Intentional Father: A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage and Character

“Under the care of the Good Shepherd, our souls will be restored. Under the shepherding of our culture, our souls will be destroyed.”
― Jon Tyson, Beautiful Resistance: The Joy of Conviction in a Culture of Compromise

“The intentional father is deeply invested in discovering who his children are and how he can help them reach their redemptive potential. He seeks to understand the children God has given him and wants to form them into young persons who can fulfill their purpose. He sees parenting as central to his call before God and does it with all of his might. This kind of father leaves multigenerational blessing in the lives of his children.”
― Jon Tyson, The Intentional Father: A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage and Character

“The joy and satisfaction that come from being faithful to Christ will always be richer than the mere ease that comes from drifting along the cultural currents.”
― Jon Tyson, Beautiful Resistance: The Joy of Conviction in a Culture of Compromise

“These rules are: Life is hard. You are not important. Your life is not about you. You are not in control. You are going to die.1 Sounds like wonderful news, right? Stick with me. These rules are all true, no matter how hard they might sound, and almost all cultures have had ways of helping men understand these rules—except modern culture. What does our culture tell us? Life should be easy, you’re important, your life is about you, you should try to control everything, and you can live forever. And as a result, all of that emphasis on the self and self-fulfillment produces an extended adolescence, where men never grow up or reach their full redemptive potential.”
― Jon Tyson, The Intentional Father: A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage and Character

“The scars on my soul come from the church, as does the joy that has come to define me. Leading in the church has been the source of both the trauma and the consolations in my life.”
― Jon Tyson, Beautiful Resistance: The Joy of Conviction in a Culture of Compromise

“As A. J. Swoboda so beautifully said, “Sabbath is a scheduled weekly reminder that we are not what we do; rather, we are who we are loved by.”
― Jon Tyson, Beautiful Resistance: The Joy of Conviction in a Culture of Compromise

“Deep in our hearts, we feel sick about the hostility, dishonor, and disdain in our world. A kind of collective fatigue manifests itself in our disgust for our culture. We are exhausted by the devaluing of others but feel powerless to stop. I feel this at times after I am done looking at social media. There is so much condescension and so much anger. I feel both grieved and overwhelmed. I want to lash out, but I don’t exactly know how. We don’t know how to change the channel of contempt. Unity feels like a pipe dream, and healing, out of reach. Our hearts are grieved by the failure of the church as well. The way we devalue people for their theology or lack of it, different practices and traditions, and struggles with sin. Our vision of God has been lowered, his power is scarce, and his love is a rumor that’s been chased away. I believe there is a cure for the cancer of contempt: honor.”
― Jon Tyson, Beautiful Resistance: The Joy of Conviction in a Culture of Compromise

“Jeff Cook writes, “The more I make my life, my well-being, my enlightenment, and my success primary, the farther I step from reality. Thus the hell-bound do not travel downward; they travel inward, cocooning themselves behind a mass of vanity, personal rights, religiosity, and defensiveness. Obsession with self is the defining mark of a disintegrating soul.”10 That’s why people so often change when they become successful. They leave behind friends, spouses, and families that remind them of their past. They distance themselves from people who know what they are really like and who have seen them in moments of weakness and vulnerability.”
― Jon Tyson, The Burden Is Light: Liberating Your Life from the Tyranny of Performance and Success

“The early church was strikingly different from the culture around it in this way -the pagan society was stingy with its money and promiscuous with its body. A pagan gave nobody their money and practically gave everybody their body. And the Christians came along and gave practically nobody their body and they gave practically everybody their money.”
― Jon Tyson, A Creative Minority: Influencing Culture Through Redemptive Participation

“Discipleship must be stronger than cultural formation. Loyalty must be stronger than compromise. This must be stronger than that. The times called for a beautiful resistance.”
― Jon Tyson, Beautiful Resistance: The Joy of Conviction in a Culture of Compromise

“If there is no interpersonal conflict in your life, no elements of your character that you are being confronted about, you are networking, you are not in close community.”
― Jon Tyson, A Creative Minority: Influencing Culture Through Redemptive Participation

“IMAGINE A FARMER walked down a backcountry road and saw another farmer repairing a fence. His young sons were helping him. “Why are you letting your sons help you?” the first farmer asked. “It’s going to take five times as long. You should just do it yourself.” “Oh, but you’ve made a mistake,” the second farmer said. “You think I’m repairing a fence. I’m not. I’m raising my sons.”
― Jon Tyson, The Intentional Father: A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage and Character

“I began a period of time when I consciously wanted to show Nate that the life of a boy is a life of ease, a life of self in which we try to control everything, and a life spent living in the moment. But the beauty of being a man is that a man embraces difficulty, cares about others, is part of a greater story, is willing to surrender to a greater cause, and lives for the eternal, not the temporary.”
― Jon Tyson, The Intentional Father: A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage and Character

“Prideful living is conformity to the image of Satan.”
― Jon Tyson, The Burden Is Light: Liberating Your Life from the Tyranny of Performance and Success

“In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman says that this overload produces in us a low information-to-action ratio.10 In other words, we become LIARs. We know everything about that which we can do nothing about and almost nothing about that which we can do everything about. We have opinions about politics and doctrine and sports teams and the lives of celebrities, yet we often fail to notice the tension in our spouse’s eyes, learn our neighbors’ names, or see the stress of our coworkers. We know everything but do nothing.”
― Jon Tyson, The Burden Is Light: Liberating Your Life from the Tyranny of Performance and Success

“To many of us, the world is a terrifying place, and we are looking for every advantage possible to block out the fear, vulnerability, and harm that can rob us of what we desire. And what could be better than having God on our side and getting him to do what we want?”
― Jon Tyson, The Burden Is Light: Liberating Your Life from the Tyranny of Performance and Success

“(1) Jesus was punished that we might be forgiven. (2) Jesus was wounded that we might be healed. (3) Jesus was made sin with our sinfulness that we might become righteous with His righteousness. (4) Jesus died our death that we might share His life. (5) Jesus became poor with our poverty that we might become rich with His riches. (6) Jesus bore our shame that we might share His glory. (7) Jesus endured our rejection that we might have His acceptance as children of God. (8) Jesus became a curse that we might receive a blessing.”
― Jon Tyson, The Burden Is Light: Liberating Your Life from the Tyranny of Performance and Success

“One of the real dangers of spiritual life in America today is the possibility of being celebrated as a success while actually being a spiritual failure.”
― Jon Tyson, The Burden Is Light: Liberating Your Life from the Tyranny of Performance and Success

“It’s time to come up with your own vision as a father for what you want to impart to your son so that on the day he leaves your house, on that day the moving truck pulls up along the sidewalk, or on that day he picks up a suitcase in each hand, he will look at you and say, “Thank you, Dad. I am who I am because of you. Thank you, Dad. I know what I know because of you. Thank you, Dad. I can do what I can do because of you. Thank you, Dad, for the experiences you gave me.”
― Jon Tyson, The Intentional Father: A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage and Character

“Our culture is riddled with control mechanisms that facilitate this idolatry. Some use money as an umbrella of control. Money creates space, comfort, and distance between the challenges and annoyances of life. It creates an illusory blanket of security around our place and position in the world. Others use power to control. They work toward positions of influence and authority so that they create a safe distance between themselves and threats to the ego or emotions. Others use sexuality to control people, knowing that beauty or desire can be a mesmerizing, even coercive force that keeps others addicted to us. Some use words to control, verbally adjusting others’ self-perception and identity to keep them in line. Some use guilt and shame, some obligation. The list of tools we deploy to manage the people and outcomes of our lives is almost endless.”
― Jon Tyson, The Burden Is Light: Liberating Your Life from the Tyranny of Performance and Success

“We often talk about God being absent from our lives, but in this culture of distraction, I wonder if we are the ones absent from him.”
― Jon Tyson, The Burden Is Light: Liberating Your Life from the Tyranny of Performance and Success

“Somebody is going to disciple your son. Somebody is going to give your son wisdom on how to live, and it’s either going to be you and a community of godly men (see exercise #3 below) or it’s going to be the world. Your son is going to become someone—he is going to grow up. His character will be formed by someone.”
― Jon Tyson, The Intentional Father: A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage and Character

“The most eloquent testimony to the reality of the resurrection is not an empty tomb or a well-orchestrated pageant on Easter Sunday but rather a group of people whose life together is so radically different, so completely changed from the way the world builds a community, that there can be no explanation other than that something decisive has happened in history.”    -- Will Willimon”
― Jon Tyson, A Creative Minority: Influencing Culture Through Redemptive Participation

“People were hungry, driven, spiritually ambitious, and willing to do whatever it took to make a difference in the world. This environment attracted incredible leaders and stirred within me a desire to make a difference, to be a part of what God was doing in this generation. However, when my spiritual ambition was integrated into a church that had a vision for greatness, some ungodly things stirred in my soul. My insecurity caused me to feel the need to compete and prove that I had what it took to make it as a leader in the kingdom of God. This desire to prove myself through competition was woven into my foundational understanding of ministry, and it shaped the paradigm of how I could obtain value in the church. You only matter to God if you do great things for God, I thought, and if you really want to do something great, you have to go to a place where that sort of greatness is appreciated. So bearing just two suitcases and a soul full of ambition, I left my life in Australia behind to start a new one in the States. When I got my first job as a youth pastor, the ministry environment was a revelation. In large American churches, where numbers are a key metric, my ambition was rewarded rather than rebuked. I realized that I could and would do anything to help my ministry grow. My arrogance was interpreted as confidence, and the worldly goals I set were cleverly disguised as spiritual-sounding initiatives. And it worked.”
― Jon Tyson, The Burden Is Light: Liberating Your Life from the Tyranny of Performance and Success

“The life we long for is not something we discover or invent or declare to be true. The life we long for is something we receive.”
― Jon Tyson, The Burden Is Light: Liberating Your Life from the Tyranny of Performance and Success