Steve Coombs

“We’re not a house that needs to be torn down, but we are a house that needs serious, serious renovation. We need the renovation of words—the encouragement and rebuke of friends.”
― Justin Whitmel Earley, Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship

“Impatient shepherds are their own worst enemy. We certainly don’t want pastors to be slackers. All the same”
― Harold L. Senkbeil, The Care of Souls: Cultivating a Pastor's Heart

“relationship with God, as with any person, soon requires a contribution from us, which will largely consist of study. Calvin Miller well remarks: “Mystics without study are only spiritual romantics who want relationship without effort.”23”
― Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives

“People who think that they are spiritually superior because they make a practice of a discipline such as fasting or silence or frugality are entirely missing the point. The need for extensive practice of a given discipline is an indication of our weakness, not our strength. We can even lay it down as a rule of thumb that if it is easy for us to engage in a certain discipline, we probably don’t need to practice it. The disciplines we need to practice are precisely the ones we are not “good at” and hence do not enjoy.”
― Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives