Ed Stetzer Quotes
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Contrary to Western evangelicalism’s obsession with the individual, discipleship is and always was a group project. No one in the New Testament followed independent of other followers.
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If your church loves the way you do church more than your children, it loves the wrong thing.
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When Jesus said, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21), the mandate was not for a select group of cross-cultural missionaries. It was a commission to you, to me, and to our churches. We have a sender (Jesus), a message (the gospel), and a people to whom we are sent (those in our culture). It is worth the effort to go beyond personal preferences and attractional methods to proclaim the gospel in our church services and outside the walls.
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Change requires decision making, and decision making requires action. Most churches don't make turnarounds because they never get to the action. Discussion only begets more discussion. Together, and led by the pastor, the church must decide on a course of action.
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When the church protects the powerful at the expense of the victim, we have compromised. And in the end, these compromises add up and convince the world that the church is not a community for the broken in search of healing but just another human institution that puts expediency above righteousness and justice.
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Global evangelism does not take place in a demilitarized zone but on the battleground of spiritual warfare. Satan, in vengeance and jealousy for that which belongs to God, is deceiving the nations and holding them in bondage to a lie.
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God does not want us distracted. He does not want our loyalties to be divided. Our allegiances are to be His alone. He loves us that intensely.
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Therefore, it is vital for churches to provide a clear target explaining the attitudes and behaviors of a disciple; you must have a clear definition of disciple.
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I mean, he himself defined his ministry as being focused on the poor, the captive, the blind, the oppressed (Luke 4:18). So, therefore, we join him on mission not only when we proclaim his saving gospel but when we confront injustice, when we touch human need, when we seek to bring about changes that transform this world to look more like it will be when Jesus returns.
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Americans now believe that having equal rights in a political system also means that each person’s opinion about anything must be accepted as equal to anyone else’s.
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Being missional means moving intentionally beyond our church preferences, making missional decisions rather than preferential decisions.
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A mature Christian recognizes that correcting every wrong on the Internet would take more hours than a full-time job. If you snap every time your great-aunt’s friend’s cousin thrice-removed makes a snarky comment about “all the contradictions in the Bible,” it will consume you and your joy.
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Just as the true fruit of an apple tree is not an apple, but another tree; the true fruit of a small group is not a new Christian, but another group; the true fruit of a church is not a new group, but a new church; the true fruit of a leader is not a follower, but a new leader; the true fruit of an evangelist is not a convert, but new evangelists. Whenever this principle is understood and applied, the results are dramatic.
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Being Missional means actually doing mission right where you are. Missional means adopting the posture of a missionary, learning and adapting to the culture around you while remaining Biblically sound.
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Teaching people to become like Jesus, outside of the power of Jesus, dishonors Jesus.
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Together we are called to ask, What does it mean to be followers of Christ in our local community? In what ways do our values and beliefs shape how we live out the gospel and its implications in our cultural context? How can we best communicate the hope and truth in Jesus’ Kingdom to our friends, neighbors, coworkers, and family?
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It’s not enough for Christians merely to recognize that the world isn’t what it ought to be and that people are suffering in ways they shouldn’t have to suffer.” Instead, our “sorrow and indignation” should prompt us to act in ways that “subvert” that brokenness.
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I don't think you can love Jesus without loving His wife.
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Your denomination is not defined by a style. So don’t let style become a point of contention.
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A disciple who grows spiritually will have a growing desire to be a witness and reach out to those who are lost.
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The cultural distance between our churches and communities continues to widen, making it harder and harder to communicate the gospel. Being missional means moving intentionally beyond our church preferences, making missional decisions rather than preferential decisions. Today, people, churches, and denominations desperately need to apply the lens of intentional missiology to North America, not just international fields. The most effective comeback churches will be those that intentionally think like missionaries in their context.
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Everything created in the world should be seen in the context of existing for God's glory.
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The institutionalizing of the church is essentially its immunization to an evangelistic impulse.
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The impetus for our mission task is to understand that everything we are—everything that happens to us and everything that we do—is to align us with the kingdom purpose for God to be exalted among the nations.