Quotes from Greg Ogden

The road to Easter goes through Good Friday. The road to new life goes through the death of the old. The road to resurrection goes through crucifixion. Jesus calls us to walk that road, the road he walked.

The church today has been compared to a football game with twenty-two people on the field in desperate need of rest, and fifty thousand people in the stands in desperate need of exercise.

Satan causes us to wallow in unnamed guilt, but God's conviction is focused and meant to lead us to restoration.

It has been broadly observed that the first Reformation of the early 1500s placed the Bible in the hands of the people and that the Second Reformation will place the ministry in the hands of the people.

Now in the new-paradigm churches, it is generally assumed that ministry is the province of the laos, the whole people of God.

The New Testament pictures the church as an every-member ministry. The "priesthood of all believers" is not just a Reformation watchword but a biblical ideal.

Bill Hull has prophetically written, "The crisis at the heart of the church is a crisis of product.

Jesus chose the disciples for what they would become, not for what they were at the time of their call.

Jesus' thought was, "Give me teachable, loyal people, and watch me change the world.

What a remarkable thing it is to recall that Jesus literally turned the world upside down with fishermen, a tax collector and a terrorist (religious zealot).

Jim Elliot summarized it well: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

What are the elements of transparent trust that will allow us to move gradually into the deep waters of transformation? • Affirming one another through encouragement • Walking with one another through difficult times • Being a reflective listener who assists another to hear God's guidance in life's complexities • Confessing our sins to one another that we may be healed

Galatians 5:16-23 reminds us of Jesus' description of our relationship to him as branches connected to a vine (John 15:1-11).

Internalization cannot happen through a mass transference to an audience but must occur in an interpersonal environment.

The life of Jesus is still being manifest among people, but now no longer through an individual physical body, limited to one place on earth, but through a complex, corporate body called the church.

The implication is that the church is not an optional afterthought for those who name Christ as their Lord. The church is central to God's plan of salvation.

Followers of Christ are often called "the people of the book" because we believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the unique written revelation of God; the reality is that believers' knowledge of Scripture is woefully inadequate.

The concern this raises, as Berding highlights, is that there is a famine of God's Word even in the church; we are starving ourselves to death. Instead of following the admonition to meditate on God's law day and night (Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:2; 119:97), we take a haphazard approach to internalizing the Word in our lives.

We must acknowledge that the climate in the Western world makes any traditional form of sharing the gospel more difficult than in the recent past.

Pastor Bill Hybels says that seekers might look at our lives and ask themselves, "If I become a Christian, am I trading up or trading down?

By reading twenty-five to thirty chapters a week, an appetite for the Word of God is created.

Scripture memorization has a number of benefits. We become what we place our minds on.

Disciple making is not a program but a relationship.

The IRS received the following note: "Gentlemen: Enclosed you will find a check for $150. I cheated on my income tax return last year and have not been able to sleep ever since. If I still have trouble sleeping I will send you the rest.