Organic Church Quotes

I've been slowly digesting a book by Neil Cole called Organic Church, and it is an amazing book. (I'll get it back to you, Rochelle - I promise) I've been writing down some quotes from the book, and I thought I would share.

- "We want to lower the bar of how church is done and raise the bar of what it means to be a disciple."

- "When church is so complicated, its function is taken out of the hands of the common Christian and placed in the hands of a few talented professionals. This results in a passive church whose members come and act more like spectators than empowered agents of God's Kingdom."

- "Most of the metaphors of the kingdom of God and the Church in the Bible use natural concepts. We would do much better as leaders in the church to learn at the feet of the farmer rather than study with the CEO of a corporation."

- "We spend so much time building nice barns...yet we have neglected the fields. We are as foolish as the farmer who builds a barn and then stands in the doorway calling all the crops to come in and make themselves at home. It is time for the Church to get her hands dirty in the soil of lost people's lives."

- "A true Seeker Service is one that focuses on the Father who is seeking His worshipers in Spirit and in truth. He alone is the Seeker."

- "The only time worship and service are put together in Scripture has nothing to do with sound systems, pews, sermons, or worship bands. It is a 24 hour a day, seven day a week expression of Christ's life in us."

- "The temptation is to define church according to our own experience."

- "I believe we need to learn to sit still and wait for God before we launch out with our strategic plans and demographic studies."

- "In many of the churches in the West, ministry is done for Jesus, but not by Jesus, and therein lies a big difference. If we evaluated our church, not by attendance or building, but by how recognizable Jesus is in our midst, our influence would be more far-reaching and our strategies would be far more dynamic."

- "In most churches in the Western world, the presence of the pastor is more noticeable than the presence of Jesus."

- "One of the most remarkable things of the church I am a part of is that people expect conversions and transformations of lives every week."

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That's all I've written down so far, but it is an amazing and inspiring book.