Ed Stetzer Quotes

#1. The Christian life is not about finding safety and comfort; it's about finding yourself in a dangerous place of vulnerable compassion.

Ed Stetzer

#2. To engage people in culture we must remember that holiness is separation from sin, not separation from sinners.

Ed Stetzer

#3. Your denomination is not defined by a style. So don't let style become a point of contention.

Ed Stetzer

#4. Don't let your church be a cul-de-sac on the Great Commission highway.

Ed Stetzer

#5. God has made relationships His chosen delivery system for the gospel of hope.

Ed Stetzer

#6. Too often we attempt to teach people to swim in a classroom. If you have ever taken swimming lessons, you immediately get the importance of getting in the water and practicing under the watchful eye of a swimming rabbi. Jesus invited the original twelve to go swimming with Him.

Ed Stetzer

#7. 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.

Ed Stetzer

#8. You can move a leader's feet by force, or you can move their hearts by influence and inspiration.

Ed Stetzer

#9. Contrary to Western evangelicalism's obsession with the individual, discipleship is and always was a group project. No one in the New Testament followed independent of other followers. - Steve Murrell, Wikichurch

Ed Stetzer

#10. The church is the chief place for spiritual edification and growth (Acts 20:32; Eph. 4:11-16; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; 1 Pet. 2:1-2; 2 Pet. 3:18).

Ed Stetzer

#11. Regrettably, we've made it acceptable to sit in church week after week & do nothing & still call yourself a 'Christian.'

Ed Stetzer

#12. I don't think you can love Jesus without loving His wife.

Ed Stetzer

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

Ed Stetzer

#14. A church without the broken is a broken church.

Ed Stetzer

#15. Belief followed by strategy and culture moves people to community.

Ed Stetzer

#16. you cannot "save" a church without focusing on the important things that make it a church - scriptural authority, biblical leadership, teaching and preaching, ordinances, covenant community, and mission.

Ed Stetzer

#17. Global evangelism does not take place in a demilitarized zone but on the battleground of spiritual warfare. Satan, in vengeance and jealousy for that which belongs to God, is deceiving the nations and holding them in bondage to a lie.

Ed Stetzer

#18. 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.

Ed Stetzer

#19. This leads us to an important spiritual principle for growth: comeback leaders know that our Lord considers commitment to Him and His desires an indispensable ingredient to growing spiritually and numerically.

Ed Stetzer

#20. Community is essential when it comes to successfully living out the Christian walk in a day-to-day context. So the math is simple: More community = More disciples Understanding the nature of groups helps you

Ed Stetzer

#21. Teaching people to become like Jesus, outside of the power of Jesus, dishonors Jesus.

Ed Stetzer

#22. You cannot hate a people and reach a people at the same time.

Ed Stetzer

#23. If your church loves the way you do church more than your children, it loves the wrong thing.

Ed Stetzer

#24. The passion of the church and every follower of Christ should be that all peoples have an opportunity to hear, understand, and respond to the gospel.

Ed Stetzer

#25. We have to assess: Are we making disciples along the way as we draw people to our churches?

Ed Stetzer

#26. Put your 'yes' on the table and let God put it on the map.

Ed Stetzer

#27. Being Missional means actually doing mission right where you are. Missional means adopting the posture of a missionary, learning and adapting to the culture around you while remaining Biblically sound.

Ed Stetzer

#28. If we demand things in worship that can't be in every culture, then we're demanding cultural preferences, not biblical.

Ed Stetzer

#29. 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.

Ed Stetzer

#30. God is not the source of any form of worship that does not exalt and lift up the name of Jesus!

Ed Stetzer

#31. Jesus did not send us to declare the gospel only where people are responsive or where our witness is welcome. He did not expect us to be on mission to disciple peoples only where there is no danger or risk involved. He was unequivocal in His mandate to disciple the nations (peoples) - all of them!

Ed Stetzer

#32. Culturally appropriate evangelism answers the actual questions being asked by a given culture rather than those questions the church believes the culture should ask.

Ed Stetzer

#33. We celebrate those comebacks because they inspire us to believe that seemingly impossible things really are possible.

Ed Stetzer

#34. If you're regularly willing to give a critique, but not willing to take one, you're not a leader, you're a cynic.

Ed Stetzer

#35. We don't own mission, and it is not ours to define.

Ed Stetzer