Jon Acuff @JonAcuff 

“You’re here (Orange) because someone made it personal for you.”

“When it’s personal, people are not an interruption they are the reason we do what do.” 

“When you make it personal, you make a person 3D. The internet makes people 2D. It’s easy to hate an idea, it’s hard to hate an individual.”

“It’s easy to hate an idea, it’s hard to hate an individual.” 

“If your hustle costs you deeply, your hustle is too expensive.” 

“Ask, ‘What do you need?’ Then actually act on it. When you act, they become visible and valuable.” 

Virginia Ward @vawardwow

“The church should be the best place for a kid to find hope.”

“It’s easy to feel invisible as a teenager, especially when you don’t fit into one of the ‘boxes’.” 

“They valued my personal dreams.”

“We are going to take our cues from Jesus when it comes to making it personal.” 

Kristen Ivy @Kristen_Ivy

“What if the opposite of personal is being shallow?”

“We can all be a little shallow sometimes.”

“If there’s pain that we can’t recognize in the church then the hope we offer is shallow.”

“If we can’t feel someone pain the healing we offer is shallow.” 

“No one needs to be seen by everybody but everybody needs somebody who sees them.”

“You can’t stop being shallow unless you learn not just to see someone but to be seen.”

“There’s a generation of too many kids and teenagers who are longing to be seen.” 

Reggie Joiner @reggiejoiner 

“It was clear no one in the crowd saw Zacchaeus the way Jesus did.”

“Everybody needs somebody to see them like Jesus does.”

“Jesus never allowed public opinion change his personal view of people.”

“Maybe Jesus chose to see Zacchaeus in front of everyone that day so Zacchaeus could see himself in a different way.”

“Something remarkable happens when you start seeing people the way Jesus sees them.”

“Don’t get so preoccupied in the busyness of trying to save everyone that you don’t stop to save someone.” 

“Pause long enough to make it personal. You can’t be personal with a crowd, you can only be personal with a person.”

“One of the greatest things that we can do to train leaders and volunteers is to remind each other that everything we do boils down to one-to-one discipleship.”

“Jesus took the time to enter into Zacchaeus’ everyday context.”

“Jesus doesn’t let the crowd determine His love for people.”

“Jesus took the time to understand someone the crowd detested.”

“Jesus believed in Zacchaeus’ potential to be generous. He saw something no one else saw.”

“Jesus had a way of replacing shame with hope.”

“What if we, like Jesus, looked into a generation and helped them believe that their past doesn’t have to identify them.”

“When someone smarter and wiser sees our potential, we start believing in it as well. We all need someone to see us.”

Key questions to lean into a relationship with a kid:
Do you know their name?
Do you know what matters to them?
Do you know where they live?
Do you know what they’ve done?
Do you know what they can do? 

“Like Zacchaeus, WE are short. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” 

“We are so programmed to see the bad in the world that we fail to see the potential of people created in the image of God.”

“Jesus shows up to say, ‘You are worth redeeming.’”

“If we believe in Jesus…We should be the first ones on the front lines to say to people, ‘Yes, you can change.'” 

“What if Jesus hadn’t stopped? What if someone hadn’t stopped in my life?”