Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

Books

Top Quotes on Didn’t See It Coming by Carey Nieuwhof

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I’m not sure if there’s a more helpful and accessible voice for church leaders than Carey Nieuwhof.

His podcast is on point and his newest book, Didn’t See It Coming: Overcoming the Seven Greatest Challenges That No One Expects and Everyone Experiences distills some of his greatest insights into an easy to read book for all church leaders.

You’ve probably seen his book around, but if you haven’t had time to dig into it yet—or if you need a refresher—here are my favorite quotes.

  • “Cynicism begins not because you don’t care but because you do care.”
  • “What starts as self-preservation soon morphs into something more insidious. You become a bit jaded.”
  • “The problem with generalizing—applying on particular situation to all situations—is that the death of trust, hope, and belief is like a virus, infecting everything,”
  • “As you grow older, you become more of who you already are.”
  • “I realized that left unchecked, cynicism would win.”
  • “Cynicism is actually a choice.”
  • “Hope is one of cynicism’s first casualties.”
  • “An incredibly effective antidote to cynicism is curiosity. Yes, simple curiosity.”
  • “Feed your curiosity, and it grows. Starve it, and it withers.”
  • “You can’t wonder and discover when you’re in a hurry.”
  • “As young leader, I was convinced that competency was the key to success in life. My formula went like this: Competency determines capacity. The more competency you are, the greater your potential. The greater your potential, the greater your capacity…But a few years into my adult life, I began to notice highly competent people who became disqualified from leadership.”
  • “If competency doesn’t determine capacity, what does? Character does.”
  • “All the competency in the world can’t compensate for your lack of character. Ultimately, your character is your lid.”
“All the competency in the world can’t compensate for your lack of character. Ultimately, your character is your lid.” – @cnieuwhof

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  • “Character, not competency, determines capacity.”
  • “No matter how hard you try, you can’t escape you.“
  • “Compromise is in you, and life brings it out of you.”
  • “We judge ourselves by our intentions and other people by their actions.“

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The Influence of Hugh Hefner and D.L. Moody

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Hugh Hefner and D.L. Moody—these are two names (and pictures) that you don’t typically see side by side.

In a Chicago Sun-Times article on the most influential Illinoisans, Hefner and Moody were listed one after the other. Here was their rationale:

Hugh M. Hefner (1926-2017), publisher and bon vivant. Steinmetz High School graduate Hugh Hefner was a product of the Northwest Side Bungalow Belt. His imagination and drive forged a publishing empire and changed the social and sexual mores of American society in profound ways during the 1950s and 1960s. Whatever else one may think of him, he was one of the most influential people of the mid-to-late-20th Century.

Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899), American Christian evangelist, author, publisher and founder of the Moody Bible Institute. Born in Massachusetts, but influential in Minnesota and Illinois. Moody converted to Evangelical Christianity as a 17-year-old in April 1855. During the Civil War, President Lincoln visited and spoke at a Sunday School meeting he sponsored on November 25, 1860. Moody preached on many battlefronts including Shiloh, Stones River and Richmond. After the Civil war he moved to Chicago begin a congregation in the Illinois Street Church. Wiped out by the Chicago Fire, Moody began anew and over the next 20 years he became internationally known, holding many religious revivals in Great Britain and Sweden. Moody led the Chicago Bible Institute, and after his death the Chicago Avenue Church was renamed the Moody Church and the Chicago Bible Church became the Moody Bible Institute we know today.

If influence is measured by your ability to affect someone else—their opinions, character, development, actions, and thoughts—then yes, both Moody and Hefner are influential.

And if influence is what we truly want, then we’re living in the best time of history, since everyone has a voice—all you need is a smartphone or a computer to amplify it. Just take a look at your social media feed and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

However, what we desperately need to understand is that influence is not neutral.

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3 Wrong and Right Ways to Change and Grow Spiritually

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There are wrong ways to do things, and then there’s my way to do things—so make the right choice.

Have you ever said that to your children or to those you’re discipling? Or perhaps you’ve thought about saying it to your spouse, but quickly made the wise decision to keep your mouth shut?

When it comes to change, we often forget to take our own advice.

We end up telling others to do as we say, not as we do. The reason we’re hypocrites is because of the habits that are already ingrained in our hearts and lives.

When it comes to change, we often forget to take our own advice.

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In Darryl Dash’s book, How to Grow: Applying the Gospel to all of your life, he describes this dilemma aptly: “Growth is possible, and God promises He will change us. But we’re often frustrated because we’re not changing as quickly or as much as we’d like. Is it possible we’ve been going about it in the wrong way?”

In his book, he lists a few wrong ways that we go about change:

  1. “New information—We read books, watch videos, listen to sermons, and attend Bible studies. We think that new information will change us. When this doesn’t work, we go looking for even more information. We become knowledgable, but we often don’t change. We become educated beyond the level of our obedience.”
  2. “Big goals—We also set big goals to start or stop behaviors. We want to read the Bible every year, but then get stuck in Leviticus. We want to stop surfing social media, but find ourselves scrolling through once again in a moment of boredom, avoidance, or procrastination.”
  3. “Willpower—We think we need more willpower, but find it doesn’t last as long as we’d like. Some argue that willpower is quickly depleted. Others argue that we can learn to increase our willpower, and boost it when it’s weak. Either way, willpower can help us, but it can’t create the consistent, sustainable change we want in our lives.”

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5 Things I’ve Learned About Writing

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As much I enjoy writing, I never thought I’d be a published author in my thirties.

So to see my name on two published books, four eBooks, and another published book on the way is humbling. This is not a humble brag—I’m just seriously floored and surprised by the way that God has led my wife and I to this point. All glory be to God!

In my twenties I had a wonderful plan for my life.

I literally wrote out a plan until my wife and I were in our eighties. Several years later, am I ever glad that this wonderful plan didn’t come to pass because God’s ways are always higher, deeper, and better than ours. We unfortunately had to learn that the hard way post-Korea, which is another story for another time. You can read more about it here.

God’s ways are always higher, deeper, and better than ours.

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So to celebrate the one year anniversary of my book, No Silver Bullets, being on the bookshelves, I wanted to share 5 things I’ve learned about writing.

If God has placed a dream on your heart to write, I hope that this will be an encouragement to you.

1. Don’t write to go viral. Just write.

There’s no formula for going viral—even the best marketers haven’t cracked the nut. Sure, your article or book needs to be timely, it needs to hit a felt need, and it needs to be written well, but there’s that intangible “share-ability” nature to everything that goes viral that’s hard to figure out. In fact, a pursuit for the next viral article can cause you to chase rabbits and trends, rather than write on topics that you’re personally passionate about and have something to say on.

A pursuit for the next viral article can cause you to chase rabbits and trends.

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So stop obsessing over SEO hacks and keywords for your title, and instead focus on honing your writing skills. I’m not telling you to ignore SEO and keywords, since they do help the “share-ability” of your content. I’m just saying that it may not be the best way to spend your time as a writer. What’s most important is practice, since the only way to get better at writing is by writing.

What’s most important is practice, since the only way to get better at writing is by writing.

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2. Knowing God was J.I. Packer’s 9th book.

We love overnight success stories. When we see people pop, or their book go on the New York Times bestseller list, we get jealous—especially if we’ve never heard of them before. But when you dig deeper, most of these overnight success stories aren’t overnight success stories. J.K. Rowling’s original Harry Potter pitch was rejected twelve times, Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit was self-published, Madeleine L’Engles’ A Wrinkle in Time was rejected 26 times, and on and on it goes.

Don’t get caught up in hacks to get famous or to make your book pop. Like Dory in Finding Nemo, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming.”

Don’t get caught up in hacks to get famous or to make your book pop.

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The theologian and professor J.I. Packer is probably best known for his book Knowing God. It’s been a classic for over 40 years, one of the top 50 books that have shaped evangelicals, received a platinum book award from the Evangelical Christian Publishing Association, and has sold over one million copies. When Knowing God popped, I’m sure most people thought that Packer was an overnight success—unbeknownst to them, this was his ninth book!

Don’t give up. Just keep writing, just keep writing, just keep writing.

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Top Quotes on Every Good Endeavor by Timothy Keller

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As many of you know, this year I’ve committed to reading/listening to as much of Timothy J. Keller as possible.

It hasn’t gone as well as I thought. Partly because I’m writing my next book (I wasn’t anticipating this), and also because I like reading broadly. So instead of one year of Keller, it might end up being a few years of Keller.

In any case, I previously listed my favorite quotes here for Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters.

I’ll do the same for Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work, my latest Keller read.

  • “The Bible begins talking about work as soon as it begins talking about anything—that is how important and basic it is.”
  • “In the beginning, then, God worked. Work was not a necessary evil that came into the picture later, or something human beings were created to do but that was beneath the great God himself. No, God worked for the sheer joy of it.”
  • “The book of Genesis leaves us with a striking truth—work was part of paradise.”
  • “Work is as much a basic human need as food, beauty, rest, friendship, prayer, and sexuality; it is not simply medicine but food for our soul.”
  • “Without meaningful work we sense significant inner loss and emptiness. People who are cut off from work because of physical or other reasons quickly discover how much they need work to thrive emotionally, physically, and spiritually.”
  • “According to the Bible, we don’t merely need the money from work to survive; we need the work itself to survive and live fully human lives.”

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