Ed Stetzer Quotes
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Community is essential when it comes to successfully living out the Christian walk in a day-to-day context. So the math is simple: More community = More disciples.
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All of us are busy. Life isn't slowing down, it's speeding up, and our Daytimers reflect the fact. Yet that is precisely why we need to take time to pray.
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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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To play it safe is the most risky decision we could make. To risk is the safest decision we can make with God. No matter the short-term implications, we must obey God with reckless abandon.
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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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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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A church without the broken is a broken church.
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The health, long-term mission, and viability of the church are not going to be determined by those who gather on Sunday morning. The future of the church will be determined by the depth of its disciples.
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You cannot hate a people and reach a people at the same time.
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We don't own mission, and it is not ours to define.
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At the end of the day, in spite of the risks, do life with your people. They need to see you struggle and process your day-to-day walk with Christ. They need to see you desire community, and you need to see transformation take place among your community.
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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.
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God does not bless us so we can enjoy a prosperous lifestyle but to make His way known throughout the earth.
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Church leaders—including pastoral staff, elders, deacons, and leadership teams—must see community as a biblical nonnegotiable, an essential for transformation, a necessity for building lives that stand the test of time.
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A biblical theology of persecution creates a framework for understanding God’s sovereign purpose in allowing the evil dominions of darkness to inflict suffering on His children.
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From a leadership perspective the biblical role of staff members is to “equip the saints.” But there should be a place where staff can practice “being a saint.”