Top 160 Jen Hatmaker Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “All due respect to the Resurrection, but two-becoming-one might be the greatest miracle ever.”

— Jen Hatmaker

102. “You don’t need to wait another day to figure out your calling. You’re living it, dear one. Your gifts have a place right now, in the job you have, in your stage of life, with the people who surround you. Calling is virtually never big or famous work; that is rarely the way the kingdom comes. It shows up quietly, subversively, almost invisibly. Half the time, it is unplanned – just the stuff of life in which a precious human steps in, the good news personified.”

— Jen Hatmaker

103. “Jesus, may there be less of me and my junk and more of You and Your kingdom.” I will reduce, so He can increase.”

— Jen Hatmaker

104. “Love God and follow Him. Really, nothing else matters. If you are ever unsure what to do, remember how Jesus loved people. He was the best at it. You can trust Him because anywhere He asks you to go, He has been there too. This is not an easy path, Lovies. Jesus went to hard places and did hard things; He loved folks everyone else hated or despised. But if you trust us at all, believe me: this is the life you want, this Jesus life.”

— Jen Hatmaker

105. “God’s Word is a place where the by-the-book people and the I-didn’t-know-there-was-a-book people can live in harmony.”

— Jen Hatmaker

106. “Hey, here’s something crazy: In the Word, poverty, widows, hunger – these are not metaphors. There are billions of lambs that literally need to be fed. With food.”

— Jen Hatmaker

107. “I approach this project in the spirit of a fast: an intentional reduction, a deliberate abstinence to summon God’s movement in my life. A fast creates margin for God to move.”

— Jen Hatmaker

108. “It’s so weird to live in this world. What a bizarre tension to care deeply about the refugee crisis in Syria and also about Gilmore Girls. It is so disorienting to fret over aged-out foster kids while saving money for a beach vacation. Is it even okay to have fun when there is so much suffering in our communities and churches and world? What does it say about us when we love things like sports, food, travel, and fashion in a world plagued with hunger and human trafficking?”

— Jen Hatmaker

109. “How lovely is a faith community that goes forth as loving sisters and brothers rather than angry defenders and separatists.”

— Jen Hatmaker

110. “How can teachers teach when parents demand exceptions and cry foul every time their kid gets crossways? Sometimes we step in and advocate, but sometimes our kids are lame and need to own up. Let them feel the sting of detention, a zero, a lost privilege, a time-out. Let failure instruct them.”

— Jen Hatmaker

111. “We cannot think our way into a new kind of living. We must live our way into a new kind of thinking.”

— Jen Hatmaker

112. “It started as a selfish act and has turned into a way of life. I can’t stand to watch someone throw anything away that belongs in my green bin.”

— Jen Hatmaker

113. “Love refuses to deny or dismantle another’s perspective simply because I don’t share it.”

— Jen Hatmaker

114. “Worry less about getting recognized and more about becoming good at what you do. Take yourself seriously. Take your art seriously. You are both worth this.”

— Jen Hatmaker

115. “Stewardship is like that. I won’t answer for the way another Christian mismanaged money. I won’t be charged with another person’s irresponsible consumption. Nor will I get credit for how another faith community shared or sacrificed luxuries for the marginalized. I’ll answer for my choices.”

— Jen Hatmaker

116. “It’s not magic; it’s hard work by vested people who share a vision for God’s kingdom in their city. An influential church is nothing more than a bunch of believers who get in the game and live on mission.”

— Jen Hatmaker

117. “The poor world is begging for mercy like Bartimaus, while the rich world is asking for more favor like James and John.”

— Jen Hatmaker

118. “Our only hope is to follow the example of Jesus and get back out there, winning people over with ridiculous love.”

— Jen Hatmaker

119. “The kingdom advances in our small neighborhoods and small acts of love and small moments of faithfulness and small feats of courage. It is not encapsulated in programs and top-down structures but activated through the body of Christ daring to be faithful everywhere we’ve been planted.”

— Jen Hatmaker

120. “Would Jesus overindulge on garbage food while climbing out of a debt hole from buying things He couldn’t afford to keep up with neighbors He couldn’t impress? In so many ways I am the opposite of Jesus’ lifestyle. This keeps me up at night. I can’t have authentic communion with Him while mired in the trappings He begged me to avoid.”

— Jen Hatmaker

121. “You are doing a wonderful job. Parenting is mind-numbingly hard and no one is perfect at it and we’ll all jack a thousand parts, yet somehow, against all odds, it will be enough.”

— Jen Hatmaker

122. “It’s about building bridges with those who won’t come to us on Sunday, not as a project but because Jesus loves them and told us to. It’s a dangerous journey that requires honesty and vulnerability.”

— Jen Hatmaker

123. “It is one thing to “feel nice feelings” toward the minority voice; it is something else entirely to challenge existing power structures to include the whole variety of God’s people.”

— Jen Hatmaker

124. “If our kids only expect blessings and exemptions, they will be terrible grown-ups.”

— Jen Hatmaker

125. “If we took Jesus’ famous teachings away and just focused on the way He lived, He would still be radical.”

— Jen Hatmaker

126. “Usually the things we think we need become the very things we need a break from.”

— Jen Hatmaker

127. “The best I offer the world is the truth – my highest gift. What the world does with it is not up to me. I am not in charge of outcomes, opinions, assessments. I am not in the business of damage control. When I present a fabricated version of myself – the self who knows all, is ever certain, always steps strong – we all lose, because I cannot keep up with that lie and neither can you.”

— Jen Hatmaker

128. “Isolation concentrates every struggle. The longer we keep our heartaches tucked away in the dark, the more menacing they become. Pulling them into the light among trusted people who love you is, I swear, 50 percent of the recovery process.”

— Jen Hatmaker

129. “Desperately wanting God’s kingdom to come, we lead with the law, like a sixteen-year-old girl who thought a Bible on a desk corner would represent the story of God more than the warm, safe embrace of human connection.”

— Jen Hatmaker

130. “We can heal and hurt each other, and we do. I’m hoping to help lead a tribe that does more healing and less hurting. I consider that my job.”

— Jen Hatmaker

131. “If the kingdom of God belongs to the poor, the bottom dwellers, then rich American Christians are going to have the hardest time finding it.”

— Jen Hatmaker

132. “We can’t deliver folks from their pits, but we can sure get in there with them until God does. Live long enough and it becomes clear that stuff is not the stuff of life. People are. We need each other, so we probably ought to practice radical grace, because our well-flaunted opinions are cold companions when real life hits.”

— Jen Hatmaker

133. “She works hard because she has to. She isn’t attempting to discern an elusive calling. She is raising her babies, working for a living, doing the best she can with what she has. Her purpose may not venture outside the walls of her home. We will never know her name. She probably won’t step into leadership or innovation or advocacy or social revolution. Yet she is also worthy of the calling she has received.”

— Jen Hatmaker

134. “Could the highest level of “right theology” involve loving God and people like Jesus suggested?”

— Jen Hatmaker

135. “This is the mission we are all called to as believers, the noble task of the church. It’s not enough to be theologically brilliant without the heart of a missionary. It’s sometimes intangible work planted in the messy soil of relationships instead of the cleaner territory of theology.”

— Jen Hatmaker

136. “If understood, believed, and lived out, God’s plan would naturally place Christians at the epicenter of their communities, like hope magnets, like soft places to fall, like living sanctuaries. We’d be coveted neighbors and trusted advocates, friends to all and enemies of none. Our reputation would precede us, and we would be such a joy to the world.”

— Jen Hatmaker

137. “Who you are matters. Your soul is cause for great delight. There is freedom in this discovery and absolute liberation in its ownership. When who you are on the inside matches the outside, you are ready for everything else.”

— Jen Hatmaker

138. “Treat other women like your sisters instead of rivals.”

— Jen Hatmaker

139. “It is no wonder humanity has long preferred legalism, which involves much cleaner territory. Give me a rule any day. Give me a clear “in” and “out” because boundaries make me feel safe. If I can clearly mark the borders, then I am assured of my insider status – the position I feel compelled to defend, the one thing I can be sure of. I want to stand before God having gotten it right.”

— Jen Hatmaker

140. “That brings us back to the overemphasis on Sunday morning as the front door: If love is the most effective way – and the Bible says it is – then how much genuine love can one pastor show an entire congregation? His bandwidth is not wide enough; this is a crippling, impossible burden.”

— Jen Hatmaker

141. “People in America are not ignorant of Christianity. They’ve heard the message, seen our churches on every corner, they flick by our Christian TV shows, they see our fish symbols on the backs of our cars. They’ve seen so much of pop Christian culture that they have a programmed response to us: Ignore, ignore, ignore. What’s needed is a change of parameters – something that will alter their emotional response.”

— Jen Hatmaker

142. “Wise women know what to hold onto and what to release, and how to walk confidently in their choices – no regrets, no apologies, no guilt. I deeply believe God wants this freedom for us. Scripture instructs us to live presently and joyfully, resisting worry and believing Jesus set us free for freedom’s sake.”

— Jen Hatmaker

143. “I don’t need to have the most, be the best, or reach the top. It is okay to pursue a life marked by obscurity and simplicity. It doesn’t matter what I own or how I’m perceived.”

— Jen Hatmaker

144. “The next generation is screaming, ‘We can’t find God in church! How does God work in the broken places? Why are Christians so mean and scared and defensive? Where is the ‘good news’ part?”

— Jen Hatmaker

145. “It isn’t our responsibility to defend our values and prioritize our message over our posture. We inherited a kingdom that cannot be shaken; we are an unthreatened people. God will stay on His throne without our rigorous defense.”

— Jen Hatmaker

146. “In all our efforts, if we are not about people, our labors aren’t really about Jesus but about us.”

— Jen Hatmaker

147. “We cannot carry the gospel to the poor and lowly while emulating the practices of the rich and powerful.”

— Jen Hatmaker

148. “If Jesus made the sanctuary free and available for all, we should too. If the savior of the world decided that demarkations and hierarchies and power players were no longer necessary to the health of his church, then who are we to reinstate a ranking system after Jesus rendered it obsolete?”

— Jen Hatmaker

149. “We mustn’t use the sorrow of another to reinforce our joy, even unintentionally.”

— Jen Hatmaker

150. “There is a horrid beauty in following God slightly blind. The victory later is sweeter, the prize more valuable than breath. Obviously, we are Americans; we like a plan, we like assurances. But the ways of faith exist so far outside of our tidy boundaries, it is a wonder we can ever receive its mysteries at all.”

— Jen Hatmaker