Intense devotion to God by the individual or group brings substantial outward success. Outward success brings a sense of accomplishment and a sense of responsibility for what has been achieved--and for further achievement. For onlookers the outward success is the whole thing. The sense of accomplishment and responsibility reorients vision away from God to what we are doing and are to do--usually to the applause and support of sympathetic people.....

This is the point at which service to Christ replaces love for Christ.

Dallas Willard. THE GREAT OMISSION.

Virtues are learnt in the same way in which we mostly learn to play football, dance, carve wood or cook -- through example and imitation, not logic and principles. We watch those who are already good at these things, experience a desire to be like them, and so we start to copy them.

Graham Tomlin. SPIRITUAL FITNESS: CHRISTIAN CHARACTER IN A CONSUMER CULTURE.

This book focuses on a frequently overlooked factor, the relationship between leadership and the loss of the under-thirty-fives. Younger adults are walking away from those institutions characterized by a culture of control and a style of delegation that is considered disempowering--the prevailing leadership style of those who are over forty (whether they are boomers or the previous two generations...). Their concept of leadership and management most commonly follows the acronym PLOC (Plan, Lead, Organize and Control). That older style of leadership might have worked --more or less--in a cultural context where information was restricted and privileged, circumstances to a large degree were predictable and change was orderly. These conditions no longer exist.

Eddie Gibbs. LEADERSHIP NEXT: CHANGING LEADERS IN A CHANGING CULTURE.