Every church needs to be able to answer two questions. First, what is our plan for making disciples? And second, does our plan work?
The greatest challenge the church faces today is to be authentic disciples of Jesus.
Most problems in contemporary churches can be explained by the fact that members have never decided to follow Christ.
We cannot handle injustice by finding more ways to impose what is in fact "right" on people. It has to come from the inside. And that's where the church should be working.
The Great Commission is still the mission statement of the Church.
It's just stunning to watch churches struggle to get mission statements when there it is, the Great Commission, and they should simply do what it says.
Contemporary American churches in particular do not require following Christ in his example, spirit, and teachings as a condition of membership-either of entering into or continuing in fellowship of a denomination or a local church.... Most problems in contemporary churches can be explained by the fact that members have not yet decided to follow Christ.
Many people get what they need from church attendance because the Word is preached, and the rituals are carried on, and God works, but it's drift more than anything else. And that's why the churches keep reaching for some programmatic formula that will make people come and give money. It's just really very sad.
He [Peter after the resurrection] now understood that he and the church were to exercise a transcendent power that did not depend upon having a kingdom or government in any human sense, for it was literally a "God government" in which they were participants (Acts 1:6-8).
Churches are not the kingdom of God, but are primary and inevitable expressions, outposts, and instrumentalities of presence of the kingdom among us. They are 'societies' of Jesus.
