Quotes from Ed Stetzer

If we are to begin to push back against this, we have to understand how meditating on God's Word is central to worldview formation.

have heard plenty of sermons that address the problem of pornography, but I can count on one hand the number of times a pastor or Sunday school teacher discussed a more comprehensive online discipleship.

Actually, reading the Bible was the factor that had the highest correlation with every other factor of discipleship. Now when people ask me, "How do we get people to witness?" "How do we get people to serve others?" or "How do we get people to pray?" I give them the same answer: Get people to read the Bible.

God has made relationships His chosen delivery system for the gospel of hope.

Scripture: inputting spiritual/gospel truth

Prayer: outputting spiritual/gospel concern

If Satan can get us to interpret our mission task as populating heaven with as many people as possible, we will resort to going only to those places of receptivity and harvest and neglect doing what is needed to reach the unreached and penetrate the dominions of darkness with the light of the gospel.

In prayer, we bring to Jesus those anxieties and insecurities that would otherwise fuel our outrage. The discipline of prayer prevents us from venting, flaming, or savaging others, either in person or online. I've never seen people go after someone they're praying for.

The discipline of prayer actually guards our hearts and minds in Christ.

In essence, we cannot hope to engage the age of outrage unless we are properly devoted to the habit of prayer. Without it, we will inevitably succumb to the temptations and pressures that give rise to outrage rather than proclaim the victory and peace of Christ.

Fasting: disciplining spiritual/gospel reliance

Almost all comeback churches identified their mood of worship as celebrative and orderly (96% and 95%, respectively) with a significant emphasis on being informal and contemporary (81% and 69%, respectively).

Fasting is by far the most neglected spiritual discipline, with roughly 80 percent of churchgoing Protestants saying they have not fasted in the past six months.[21]

Fasting is designed to reorient our hearts to God and to reveal our dependency upon him and the complete insufficiency of this world to meet our needs.

God does not bless us so we can enjoy a prosperous lifestyle but to make His way known throughout the earth.

The impetus for our mission task is to understand that everything we are—everything that happens to us and everything that we do—is to align us with the kingdom purpose for God to be exalted among the nations.

Jesus did not say "make converts" or "teach them to pray a particular prayer." Rather, this is about people who are born again through the power of the Savior who died and rose again. You and I are to participate in the work of multiplying the number of surrendered learners and followers of Christ. We are to lead people into the kingdom by way of the Cross.

Through Scripture, we hear Christ's voice speaking into the outrage, giving us wisdom rather than forcing us to seek it from the chaotic masses. Through prayer, we cast our anxieties and fears upon Christ rather than pouring them out into a vat of outrage. Through fasting, we remind ourselves of the soul's dependence upon Christ and the insufficiency of everything else.

Outrage has no time for dialogue, and it won't be distracted by nuance or even truth.

Worldly love (licentiousness) seeks to endorse or embrace everything. It begins from the false dichotomy that we either accept without question people's beliefs and behavior (unless it is obviously destructive to someone else) or we are unloving. As a result, we cannot address underlying sin or rebellion. Thus, love is set as opposite to judgment.

But too many Christians are content in their own salvation and allow an ethnocentric provincialism to dismiss the imperative of God's mission to the nations.

A disciple who grows spiritually will have a growing desire to be a witness and reach out to those who are lost.

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.

Therefore, it is vital for churches to provide a clear target explaining the attitudes and behaviors of a disciple; you must have a clear definition of disciple.