The Gospel-Driven Church debuted a little over a month ago, and I’ve been keeping an eye on what lines seem to resonate the most with readers, at least according to what I’ve been able to see on social media. Below are 20 quotables from the book that seem to have landed well with others. Maybe they will with you too.
1. “The preacher of God’s word must remember that at the end of the day it is not creativity or excellence or winsomeness that wins hearts to Christ but the sufficient and powerful word of God.”
2. “What is a gospel-centered church? One that explicitly and intentionally connects its teaching, programs, ministry philosophy, and mission to the content of the gospel . . . A gospel-driven church knows that the gospel isn’t one feature of a church, one thing on a checklist, something useful in an evangelistic program. A gospel-driven church makes the gospel the unifying and motivating factor in everything they say and do.”
3. “In seeker-oriented worship, we direct a steady diet of ‘how to’ at people who have yet to receive a heart full of ‘want to’.”
4. “If you win people to biblical principles but fail to win them to the biblical Christ, you will simply create religious people who lack the power to change. We create tidy unbelievers.”
5. “The fundamental problem for every human being is not an unmet felt need but the unkept law of God. Our primary disconnect is not between ourselves and our best lives but between our lives and our Creator.”
6. “We honor the Spirit with our reliance, not with our self-centered know-how.”
7. “When the gospel is peripheral, occasional, or incidental to our mission and our preaching, we cannot trust that the gospel is truly drawing and shaping those who respond.”
8. “Too much of our Sunday morning worship sets the cart of affections before the horse of belief.”
9. “Reducing reliance upon the Bible or removing it from a worship service in favor of practical help or biblically inspired principles is a sure sign that you don’t know what a worship service is.”
10. “The best motives in the world cannot sanctify unbiblical methods.”
11. “We must distinguish between pragmatism and practicality. The Bible is full of practical application. God has given us commands to obey. Neither applying the Bible nor obeying God is inherently legalistic. But when we assume certain tangible or visible results from our application and obedience, we have turned from practicality to pragmatism and from holiness to legalism.”
12. “The way a church wins its people shapes its people. And consumeristic values and pragmatic methodology win consumers and pragmatists. If they aren’t won by the glory of Christ, they aren’t won to the glory of the Christ.”
13. “Affirming the Bible’s inerrancy is not the same as trusting its sufficiency.”
14. “The quickest way to shut down your church’s missional response to the gospel is to leverage guilt in motivating them to reach their lost friends.”
15. “Your model is only as strong as your mentality.”
16. “People who misunderstand or who feel misunderstood often express criticism in church environments because church is a place where they always expect to feel comfortable. They expect to feel like they belong. When significant change happens, it disrupts that sense of participation. They’re not really mad at you; they’re just hurt from the discomfort of the change . . . You always find out a church’s idols by changing things.”
17. “Remember how patient God was with you before you ‘got it.’ Don’t treat others who are slow to grasp gospel-centrality with the kind of pressure you were not subjected to yourself. People rarely feel leveraged into a genuine comprehension of grace.”
18. “The wider among the leadership the vision is applied and the more consensus there seems to be, the more convincing the vision for change will be to the congregation.”
19. “It is possible to lead a transition to gospel-centrality in a law-centered way. And this will embed an internal defeater in the movement. How can you make sure people don’t get burnt out on ‘trying to be gospel-centered?’ Create a culture of encouragement.”
20. “Preach grace and grace alone — and don’t give up! — and then watch as the metrics of grace emerge to become the measurement of your church’s health over time. Preaching the gospel is the first and most important way to give your church the power it needs to bear fruit for Christ.”
Read reviews of The Gospel-Driven Church from:
– Tim Challies
– The Gospel Coalition (Steve DeWitt)
– Darryl Dash
Order your copy today via Amazon or the book page.