Ed Stetzer Quotes

United States, Author
1966

Edward John Stetzer is an American author, speaker, researcher, pastor, church planter, and Christian missiologist. Stetzer is Billy Graham Distinguished Chair of Church, Mission, and Evangelism at Wheaton College and Executive Director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. He is the North American Regional Director for Lausanne International and serves as interim Teaching Pastor at Moody Church in Chicago, Illinois and Teaching Pastor at Highpoint Church, a multisite church in the western suburbs of Chicago. He is a contributor to the North American discussion on missional church, church planting, church revitalization, and Christian cultural engagement.

Also known as Speaker, Pastor

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.

Ed Stetzer
Christians need to grasp the hypocrisy of engaging online in a way that would be wholly intolerable if we were face-to-face with others.

Ed Stetzer

God does not use extraordinary striving. He uses extraordinary availability to reach the world with the message of his Kingdom.

Ed Stetzer
- God
- Reach
- Extraordinary
What we see happening as we move further into the twenty-first century is a sovereign God moving through global events to open doors once closed to the gospel.

Ed Stetzer
- God
- Events
- Gospel
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.

Ed Stetzer
Belief followed by strategy and culture moves people to community.

Ed Stetzer
- Culture
- Community
- Belief
Just as the mighty sequoia would topple without a community of supporting trees, believers who seek transformation apart from a Christian community are vulnerable to spiritually topple in the winds of adversity.

Ed Stetzer
You can move a leader’s feet by force, or you can move their hearts by influence and inspiration.

Ed Stetzer
- Inspiration
- Leader
- Force

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.

Ed Stetzer
90 percent of heart patients who are told to change their lifestyle habits or die, choose death over change.

Ed Stetzer
- Heart
- Change
- Lifestyle
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.

Ed Stetzer
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.

Ed Stetzer
- God
- Decision
- Risk
You cannot hate a people and reach a people at the same time.

Ed Stetzer
- People
- Hate
- Reach
We don't own mission, and it is not ours to define.

Ed Stetzer
- Mission
- Define

A church without the broken is a broken church.

Ed Stetzer
- Church
- Broken
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.”

Ed Stetzer
- Leadership
- Role
- Members