I am so glad I work for The Rocket Company!  Our organization has a deep passion to help churches succeed.  Therefore, they have dispatched me to the Orange Conference in Atlanta, Ga to gather leadership lessons and insights to pass on to you.

In this morning’s main session, Andy Stanley destroyed many of our assumptions about how to effectively communicate to students and young people.

After reading these leadership quotes along with others from Reggie Joiner and Ken Coleman, please check out an amazing FREE offer from The Rocket Company on helping pastors preach better sermons.

Reggie Joiner

  • Words matter and what you do every week matters.

Ken Coleman

  • Words are strategically used in questions.
  • Good questions inform.  Great questions transform.
  • By the time we reach the 8th grade, the average person is only asking 2-3 questions a day.
  • Our education system is driving out curiosity.  We’re training them to answer questions.
  • Great leaders are always asking questions.
  • The most successful people are continually asking questions.
  • We can become so obsessed with what’s next that we miss the now.  And by missing the now, we often miss what’s next.
  • At some point life happens.

Andy Stanley

  • We have for generations, Evangelicals perceived ourselves as being the majority.  Anytime that happens, they speak with an element of authority whether they have that authority or not.
  • We’re not the majority anymore…We keep talking like we’re the majority and we look foolish.
  • In the first century they knew they weren’t the majority.  They were lion food.
  • Once upon a time a handful of people believe Jesus raised from the dead.  2000 years later a third of world believes that.  It’s going to be OK.
  • Whenever you’re in the majority, you outreach your authority.
  • Approach determines people’s response to what we have to say.
  • We must adapt our approaches to connect with our target audiences.
  • How do you win as many as people as possible?  I change my approach.
  • My goal isn’t to be right.  My goal isn’t to make a point.  My goal is to win those under the law.
  • My goal isn’t for people who agree with me to agree with me.
  • I adjust my approach depending on my audience.
  • There is a goal and an approach.  When you prioritize the approach over the goal, you’re out of business.
  • You have inherited an approach that assumes consensus among biblical authority.
  • Engaging people with the text has more to do with your approach than the scripture.
  • We live in a world that does not view the scriptures and Bible the same way you do.
  • Anytime you choose a passage and stay there, this is a win in a biblically illiterate culture.
  • A Bible “story” is a terrible word.  It’s better than a story.  We think it actually happened.  It’s not a story.  It’s history.
  • Bring your energy to the text.
  • Nobody reads anything because it’s inspired.  You read things because you want to read it and discover it’s true.
  • Give people permission not to believe or obey the scriptures.  I Cor 5:12-13  When you give the permission not to believe or obey, they are more likely to believe or obey.
  •  When you give non-Christians an out, they begin to lean in.
  • The attraction of the church is looking at all of those one-anothers one-anothering one-another.  They will want to be a part of that.
  • The attraction of the early church was looking at how they love one another.
  • We don’t believe Jesus is the Son of God because the Scripture is inerrant.  We believe Jesus is the Son of God because Jesus rose from the dead.
  • The foundation of our faith is not the Bible.  The foundation of our faith is an event in history.
  • We’ve got to teach in a way that always ties things back to Jesus.
  • Our approach that we’ve used has set our children up for disaster in college.
  • The foundation of your faith is not historical Adam and Eve.  The foundation of your faith is that people who expected to find a body did not find a body.
  • Don’t refer to the Bible as a book.  The Bible’s not a book.  It’s way better than a book.
  • Cite authors, not the Bible.
  • Every single time you say something about the author you tie that author to history.
  • We shouldn’t expect rationale people to think Jesus raised from the dead because the Bible says so.
  • Don’t ever use the phrase biblical marriage again ever.  Can you even think of a good biblical marriage?  Use the term Christian marriage…Just go home for a day, you don’t even need to believe this, and submit to one another.
  • I submit to Sandra out of reverence of what Jesus did for me.
  • Acknowledge the odd as odd.  There are some odd things in the Bible.  Don’t be afraid of that.
  • You believe the Old Testament is true because Jesus believed the Old Testament is true.
  • Don’t create the impression that one must choose between faith and science.
  • Science is the search for natural explanations.
  • Just say, “Oh, so that’s how God did it.”
  • We want people to find natural causes.  We want people to find out the reasons why things work the way they work.
  • It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. – Acts 15:18 NIV

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pbs-stanley-300Would you like to hear how Andy Stanley, Steven Furtick, Louie Giglio, and Mark Driscoll prepare their messages?

All of this happens on Wednesday, May 1 at 12pm EDT.  And best of all, it’s 100% free. Preach Better Sermons is a free, four-hour, online conference focused on helping communicators prepare and deliver messages that matter.  Some of the best communicators in the world will unpack preaching principles you can use right away.

It’s 100% free and since it happens online, there are no travel costs.  Click here to register for the event now.

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