Quotes from Ed Stetzer

Maybe the first thing we need to pray about is for God to help us see the huge field of people waiting to be harvested and to give us an incredible love for those people.

We do not see the divine intervention for which we yearn in our country because we think it is for us and our needs rather than an impetus for God's mission.

God does not want us distracted. He does not want our loyalties to be divided. Our allegiances are to be His alone. He loves us that intensely.

I mean, he himself defined his ministry as being focused on the poor, the captive, the blind, the oppressed (Luke 4:18). So, therefore, we join him on mission not only when we proclaim his saving gospel but when we confront injustice, when we touch human need, when we seek to bring about changes that transform this world to look more like it will be when Jesus returns.

You can preach heresy at a lot of churches, and people will not object. Leaders can lead double lives, and people will let it be. But, change the order of service, and it's time for a fight.

Even though most people coming to a church for the first time cannot articulate this verse, they are probably thinking something similar to what James and John said to Jesus, "Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. 'Teacher, ' they said, 'we want you to do for us whatever we ask'" (Mark 10:35 NIV, emphasis added). Each week people show up telling the church, many times, "We want you to do for us whatever we ask.

In his book Vision America, Aubrey Malphurs asserted that much of the perceived church growth in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s was actually due primarily to the redistribution of believers, not genuine church growth. He stated, "The problems of the church in the 1980s carry over into the 1990s. The church as a whole continues to experience decline and the unchurched increase."5

Missional churches act faithfully and intentionally wherever God gives them opportunity.

most evangelical churches are filled with people who live very much like the world but look different from it. It should be exactly the opposite. We should look similar to those in our community but act differently.

Everything created in the world should be seen in the context of existing for God's glory.

The idea that spiritual growth begins with discomfort is a fact many church members and church leaders have been unwilling or unable to embrace.

it's not enough for Christians merely to recognize that the world isn't what it ought to be and that people are suffering in ways they shouldn't have to suffer." Instead, our "sorrow and indignation" should prompt us to act in ways that "subvert" that brokenness.

It's ironic that most evangelical churches are filled with people who live very much like the world but look different from it. It should be exactly the opposite. We should look similar to those in our community but act differently.

Oswald Chambers puts it all in perspective when he writes, "Remember, no one has time to pray; we have to take time from other things that are valuable in order to understand how necessary prayer is. The things that act like thorns and stings in our personal lives will go away instantly when we pray; we won't feel the smart anymore, because we have God's point of view about them. Prayer means that we get into union with God's view of other people."9

Being missional means moving intentionally beyond our church preferences, making missional decisions rather than preferential decisions.

If they do what missionaries do—study and learn language, become part of culture, proclaim the Good News, be the presence of Christ, and contextualize biblical life and church for that culture—they are missional churches.

Americans now believe that having equal rights in a political system also means that each person's opinion about anything must be accepted as equal to anyone else's.

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

Just as the true fruit of an apple tree is not an apple, but another tree; the true fruit of a small group is not a new Christian, but another group; the true fruit of a church is not a new group, but a new church; the true fruit of a leader is not a follower, but a new leader; the true fruit of an evangelist is not a convert, but new evangelists. Whenever this principle is understood and applied, the results are dramatic.

Every church and believer must ask: What are we known for in the community? What do we represent?

Our interests, goals, and ambitions must be centered on the all-embracing task the gospel sets before us. Paul describes this in Romans 15:20: "My ambition has always been to preach the Good News where the name of Christ has never been heard, rather than where a church has already been started by someone else

We believe the church's purpose is to glorify God, not to make people happy. The church does not exist for believers or unbelievers; it exists for God's glory, for the equipping of believers, and the church is God's missionary in the world.

We are not commissioned to retreat into our buildings to form holy huddles and talk about the good old days. In his omniscience, Jesus knew he was sending his followers into hostile territory. Nevertheless, he commanded them to go into the world (Matthew 28:18-19), be fishers of men (Mark 1:17), and tell people everywhere about him (Acts 1:8).

A mature Christian recognizes that correcting every wrong on the Internet would take more hours than a full-time job. If you snap every time your great-aunt's friend's cousin thrice-removed makes a snarky comment about "all the contradictions in the Bible," it will consume you and your joy.