Quotes about Church

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If Southern Baptist churches sent just 1 percent of their members to reach the nations and peoples of the world, instead of five thousand there would be 160,000 missionaries (according to our reported membership of sixteen million in 2009). The support should not be a problem—not financially, logistically, or in human resources. Could not 99 percent of the church adequately support the 1 percent sent to the nations to fulfill the mission of God?

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."

Culturally appropriate evangelism answers the actual questions being asked by a given culture rather than those questions the church believes the culture should ask.

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.

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.

The passion of the church and every follower of Christ should be that all peoples have an opportunity to hear, understand, and respond to the gospel.

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 Understanding the nature of groups helps you.