Ed Stetzer Quotes
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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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The institutionalizing of the church is essentially its immunization to an evangelistic impulse.
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If Satan can get us to interpret our mission task as populating heaven with as many people as possible, we will resort to going only to those places of receptivity and harvest and neglect doing what is needed to reach the unreached and penetrate the dominions of darkness with the light of the gospel.
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Consolidating power and merely delegating responsibilities are sufficient ways to maintain a single community, but they are terrible ways to exponentially reproduce Christian community. Movements occur only when the disempowered are given the freedom and responsibility to lead, along with the accountability to make it happen.
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When we have every right (after all it’s “our church”), when we have always done it that way (no reason to change if we like it), and when we are in prominent positions (we have earned it), we can easily make it about us.
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Belief followed by strategy and culture moves people to community.
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The church stands no hope of engaging the age of outrage unless we root out the lie that the solution to sin lies anywhere outside of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He is “the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20). Salvation is not coming on Air Force One. And Jesus will not come riding on a donkey or an elephant. Those who fail to see such things have been lost to the idolatry of the moment.
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Put your 'yes' on the table and let God put it on the map.
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Barna is correct when he writes, "After fifteen years of diligent digging into the world around me, I have reached several conclusions about the future of the Christian church in America. The central conclusion is that the American church is dying due to lack of strong spiritual leadership. In this time of unprecedented opportunity and plentiful resources, the church is actually losing influence. The primary reason is the lack of leadership. Nothing is more important than leadership."
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We celebrate those comebacks because they inspire us to believe that seemingly impossible things really are possible.
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This leads us to an important spiritual principle for growth: comeback leaders know that our Lord considers commitment to Him and His desires an indispensable ingredient to growing spiritually and numerically.
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Scripture teaches us to contend for the faith (Jude 3) and contextualize to culture.
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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.
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A vision must be credible. Since the vision caster is probably you, the church must trust you and its other leaders. The congregation's experience with its leadership helps them have the confidence necessary to follow the leaders' direction. As a leader, you have a “credibility tank.” Every time you have a success, you add to that tank. As you add to the credibility tank, you make it possible to cast an even larger vision. On the other hand, each time you fail, your tank is drained. Then you have to restore that credibility before pressing on to a new task. Build your credibility by casting a progressively larger vision. Begin with small victories. Celebrate what God has done through your people. Whenever possible, throw a party at church to help your people see that growth is occurring and lives are being transformed. Then move to bigger victories!
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You cannot “save” a church without focusing on the important things that make it a church—scriptural authority, biblical leadership, teaching and preaching, ordinances, covenant community, and mission.
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Missional churches act faithfully and intentionally wherever God gives them opportunity.
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Outrage has no time for dialogue, and it won’t be distracted by nuance or even truth.
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We do not see the divine intervention for which we yearn in our country because we think it is for us and our needs rather than an impetus for God’s mission.
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The Christian life is not about finding safety and comfort; it’s about finding yourself in a dangerous place of vulnerable compassion.
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God has made relationships His chosen delivery system for the gospel of hope.
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You can move a leader’s feet by force, or you can move their hearts by influence and inspiration.
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We need to stop presenting community as just another option for the religious consumer and start presenting it as God’s will for everyone. It should be seen as the reality of those within the church and the refuge for those without.
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Too often we attempt to teach people to swim in a classroom.” If you have ever taken swimming lessons, you immediately get the importance of getting in the water and practicing under the watchful eye of a swimming rabbi. Jesus invited the original twelve to go swimming with Him.
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Culturally appropriate evangelism answers the actual questions being asked by a given culture rather than those questions the church believes the culture should ask.