Quotes from the book: Core Values by Rev. George O. Wood

• Bridges must be built not only with words, but also with deeds and caring acts that demonstrate sincere, compassionate love.
• I would never want to hold an office for the sake of a position. I want to see God do something.
• If we as a church don’t share that passion Christ has for the lost, we have missed our reason for being.
• Proclaiming Christ is the reason we exist.
•  If we undermine our words by our deeds, we have lost the authenticity and the credibility of the gospel.
• Jesus came to heal, and the church ought to be a healing place.
• We need to live with the expectation that at any moment we can step out of the confines of this world, either through the Lord’s return or through our home-going.
• We must work until the Lord comes back. We must continue to serve him faithfully and fervently.
• God has no grandchildren. It has been observed that the church is always one generation away from extinction.
• We identify the need in a region and pull together the resources to send someone there to lead people into growth. But too often at the local church level we have reversed that. We staff a church for maintenance rather than for growth.
• We need leaders to guide our young people into spiritual growth. We also need young people to respond to God‘s call to spiritual leadership themselves.
• I learned as pastor that people much more readily identified with my weaknesses then my successes.
• Young people don’t just want to be handed something; they want to be a part of making something.
• I don’t care how you do church as long as people are getting saved, baptized in the Spirit, called into ministry, healed, delivered, effectively serving Christ, reaching the lost, and discipling people.
• If ministry doesn’t flow out of relationship, ministry is not going to happen.
• We need to be mature enough to take a punch, so to speak, and if young people have hard questions-whether doctrinal, philosophical, or organizational-we cannot be defensive about that.
• Spiritual “parents”, it is not our job to force young people into a mold. It is our job to motivate them to become all that Christ would have them to become.
• Relationships don’t happen unless you build trust.
• Church planting is the most effective means for evangelization.
• Churches of influence impact their community.
• What comes out of church planting is not buildings; it’s people.
• We are never to write people off on the basis of small numbers attached to their ministry.
• God will not ask us if we have been successful, but if we’ve been faithful.
• Churches must have faith to continue to push the envelope for the next work God has in store.
• The spirit wants to take not only the young leaders anxious to get out and make a mark for God, but he also wants to take senior veterans and launch them into new ministries they never would have imagined.
• There is a correlation between how we care for things physically and how we care for things spiritually.
• The pastor who connects with his or her congregation must offer the word with integrity and excellence.
• Small churches grow into larger churches if they are thinking and preparing as if they were bigger.
• Dr. Robert Frost, “Lord, help them to lay foundations that are strong enough to bear the weight you were later place on them.”
• We must re-configure our definition of success.
• Leadership must listen in order to effectively serve.
• My tongue prayer request is that God will give me in those serving with me on the leadership team wisdom.
• God can refuse nothing to a praying church.
• There are some things God will not give us unless we ask.
• We cannot suppose that God will do for us without prayer what he has promised to do for us only through prayer.
• Without prayer we cannot accomplish the work of the Lord.
• The church moves forward on its knees.
• Jesus set aside time and place for prayer. He prayed with passion and intensity.
• Jesus instructed us to pray with faith.
• When the church has no power, it is reduced to argument.
• A church that does not fervently pray is not going to see God moving in its midst.
• A church must be what it advertises.
• I’m afraid to say that in a lot of churches there are many events, but there’s little publication when the church is meeting for prayer.
• It is too easy for us to rely on our own efforts and our own strength. Prayer drives us to our knees in dependence upon God, reminding us that human effort cannot accomplish his purposes.
• Why does the church exist? To reach a spiritually dead world with the line giving gospel. Prayer will keep us from forgetting our mission.
• The early church devoted itself to the apostles doctrine, breaking of bread, and to prayer.
• Prayer in its simplest definition is a conversation with God.

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