“A retreatist spirituality is not a spirituality that can, or will, transform the world in Jesus’s name.”

Being the church that Jesus intended means that we must participate in God’s eternal purposes for his world.

Our preferences for stability and security blind us to the opportunities for adventure when they present themselves.

Building community for its own sake is like attending a cancer support group without having cancer.

We have to assume now that all mission is cross-cultural.

Put simply, the church finds itself in a post-Christendom era, and it had better do some serious reflection or face increasing decline and eventual irrelevance.

This submission to the threshold of a cross is at the very root of our following Jesus; it changes the game completely.

All their reproduction will simply mirror this misapprehension.

Real leaders ask hard questions and knock people out of their comfort zones and then manage the resulting distress.

I found out the hard way that if we don’t disciple people, the culture sure will.

It not only abandons its biblical mandate, it is rendered missionally ineffective.

Go among the people. Don’t assume you know what church looks like.

Truth is narrow, but grace is wide.

Our point isn’t to make an examination of popular film but to illustrate that the yearning for a heroic adventure lies just beneath.

At some point preoccupation with safety can get in the way of living full lives.

There’s no such thing as an unsent Christian. You have already been SENT.

And every disciple is to carry the mission of God into every sphere of life. We are all missionaries sent into a non-Christian culture.

Do you realize that God expects you to consider that you are actually working for Jesus Christ on your job?

Being able to turn to Jesus after the shark attack kept me alive.

God led Jesus to a cross, not a crown, and yet that cross ultimately proved to be the gateway to freedom and forgiveness for every sinner in the world.

I’m rollin’ with Satan, not Jesus Christ. I’m the only son of the devil.

I was taken in the Spirit to the burning bush on Mount Horeb, Moses’ “first ascension,” and allowed to witness the encounter he had with the Lord there. Throughout the visitation, I was enabled to know and feel the thoughts and emotions of Moses’ inner being. …

You think when Jesus comes back, he really wants to see a cross? That’s like going up to Jackie Onassis with a rifle pendant on.

Joseph’s vision of the Father and the Son opened this dispensation. Then came the Restoration of the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ with the same organization that existed in the primitive Church, built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets.

It doesn’t matter if it’s in my class or around the world, anywhere, the first thing I say is “First of all guys.