Enjoyed this challenge to get back to discipleship and these favorite quotes:
“It is hard to escape the conclusion that today one of the greatest roadblocks to the gospel of Jesus Christ is the institutional church” Howard Snyder
“The church is the church only when it exists for others.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer
the church has not obeyed the Lord's commission to make disciples. Because of this disobedience, it is suffering.
Christians cannot grow properly without regular intake of the Word, a meaningful prayer life, encouragement from others, accountability in the context of community, and personal witness to faith in Christ.
What kind of team is the evangelical church putting on the field?
Our churches are not organized for growth and fulfilling their mission.
Today, Sunday has become a day for Christians to “hit” church early and spend the rest of the day with family.
My thesis is simple: The small group of five to sixteen members is the best forum for creating community; it is also the optimum environment for making disciples.
“The church grows both in number and in meaningfulness to its members as the number of face-to-face groups increases.” Dr. Richard Myers
Five basic principles for any small group: Be intentional, Provide structure, Strive for intimacy, Insist on outreach and Commit to reproduce.
“The spiritual disciplines are those personal and corporate disciplines that promote spiritual growth. They are habits of devotion and experiential Christianity that have been practiced by the people of God since biblical times.” Don Whitney
My theology of pastoral care is simple. God has called the entire body to care for one another (1 Cor. 12:13-28; Gal. 6:1-4; 1 Thess. 5:14).
"Nondiscipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees everything in the light of God’s overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstance,s power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil. In short, nondiscipleship costs you exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring (John 10:10). The cross-shaped yoke of Christ is after all an instrument of liberation and power to those who live in it with him and learn the meekness and lowliness of heart that brings rest to the soul.” Dallas Willard
"We must actively abandon the hope that stagnant churches can be renewed by painful restructuring and the tacking on of cell group church principles. According to Jesus, it's not possible to put new wine in old wineskins! The plan for the stagnant church must begin with the wineskin, not the new wine. A church cannot effectively mix traditional patterns of church life with cell group patterns. There must be a deliberate transition. After devoting nearly a quarter of a century to the attempt to help 'renew the churches,' I am a total skeptic that it can be done. The only hope for old wineskins is to pour out the wine they contain into new ones and throw the leaky things away!" Ralph Neighbor
Theologically and practically, churches can view pain and change as good and, in the long run, necessary for survival.
Richard Lovelace’s Model For Renewal
Primary Elements of Renewal: Depth Presentation of the Gospel:
A. Justification : You are accepted
B. Sanctification: You are free from bondage to sin
C. The Indwelling Spirit: You are not alone
D. Authority in spiritual conflict: You have authority
Secondary Elements of Renewal: Outworking of the Gospel in the Church’s Life
A. Mission—presenting the gospel of Christ into the world via proclamation and social demonstration
B. Prayer—expressing dependence on the power of the Spirit both individually and corporately
C. Community—being in union with the body of Christ both in micro- and macro-community
D. Disenculturation—being freed from cultural binds
E. Theological Integration—having the mind of Christ – toward revealed truth, toward your culture
“The local congregation is like a whaling vessel. It is too large and unwieldy in itself to catch whales, so it must carry smaller vessels aboard for this purpose. But the smaller whaleboats are ill advised to strike out on their own apart from the mother ship. The can catch a few whales but they cannot process them, and the smaller boats can easily be destroyed by storms.” Richard Lovelace

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