shawnethomas

In 1910 Theodore Roosevelt gave a speech in Paris, France, on the kind of people that is needed to make a great society. A paragraph from that speech has become famous:

“It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly…who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Roosevelt was saying that part of what it takes to make a society great is a people who do not merely sit back and watch what their leaders are doing, but rather who each actively serve and help make the country what it should be. The same thing is true of a church. A healthy, successful church is one where the people do not just sit back and expect the ministers to serve, but where each church member is actively using their gifts to serve God.   Continue reading →