Favorite Quotes from 2006

• Peter Drucker: "The stepladder is gone, there's not even an implied structure of an industry's rope ladder. It's more like vines, and you bring your own machete."

Peter Drucker passed away this year at the age of 95. He was considered the father of modern management. A devout Christian he dedicated his later years to organizations like Leadership Network (who published my book), the Girl Scouts and other non-profits.

Drucker had high hopes that the corporation might become a source of community and self-actualization in the spirit of one's calling. However, he found that the gap between executives and front line employees grew - not only in pay but as a divided class. He found the motivation was too often greed and not the common good. So, he shifted his efforts toward helping the mega-churches who were embracing an entrepreneurial and business model as well as other non-profits.

My question; "Has a similar tail begun to wag the dog for many mega-churches? Has size overtaken the best intentions within our mega-chruches?"

• Reinhold Neibuhr: "Nothing worth doing is completed within our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope; Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in the immediate context of history; therefore, we are saved by faith; Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love."


• Gandhi: “We must become the change we wish to see.”


• Richard Theime; “…such symbolic constructs (of the future) are always maps in danger of being mistaken for the territory"


• Tradition/Future: “The function of tradition is not to live in the past it’s to secure the future.”


• Information/Transformation: “We believe that information is transformation – but its not, information is information.”


• Churchill: “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”


• Henri Nouwen: “Healing happens when we can connect our woundedness with Christ’s woundedness.”


• Henri Nouwen: “Hope focuses on the Giver not the gift.”


• Henri Nouwen: “Prayer has meaning only when it is necessary and indispensable.”


• Rev. William Sloane Coffin: “Faith doesn't give certainty it gives you the ability to deal with uncertainty.”


• Rev. William Sloane Coffin: “If you love the good without hating evil then you tend toward sentimentalism. If you hate evil more than you embrace the good then end up a hater.”


• Bono: “Your enemies will define you so make them interesting.”


• PJ O’Rourke “If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait until it is free”


• “Hope is the adrenaline of the soul.”


• Johnny Cash: “You can only get so far with rage, you need strategy.”


• President Gerald Ford: “Anybody who can't keep his enemies in his head has too many enemies." Asked what he thought of Nixon’s enemies list.