Quotes from Larry Osborne

I often have people come up to me after a sermon and show me their outline, pointing out some blanks they filled out before the message began. You can see in their eyes and sly smile a sense of "Look, I got you!" In reality I got them. If they're jotting down a passage, a point, or one of my favorite sound bites before I say it, they've come to the point of knowing the information. In the ultimate sense, my message has become memorable.

Everything we do is aimed at helping the Christians we already have grow stronger in Christ. But everything is done in such a way that their non-Christian friends will understand all that we're saying and doing. Bottom line: We've tried to create a perfect storm for come-and-see evangelism while velcroing newcomers for long-term spiritual growth.

Yet the reality is that in the American church, very few people come to Christ through a small group. It's much more likely that their first exposure to the gospel will come through a conversation with a friend, followed by a visit to a church's special program or a worship service.

When they prayed for rain, they carried an umbrella.

A Radically Different View of Authority Another major difference between the places where Cho's model leads to explosive growth and the places where it flounders can be found in their radically different views of spiritual authority.

A Radically Different Society A third major cultural distinctive that impacts how well this model will or won't work is the level of mobility within a society and the extent to which people have strong extended-family ties.