80 Leadership Quotes From 6 Of America’s Leading Church Planters

For the last two days The Rocket Company dispatched me to attend the Velocity 2014 Conference in Cumming, GA.  This event exists to motivate, encourage and equip church planters.  I was stretched and challenged by the incredible line-up of main session and breakout speakers assembled.

The following are 80 Leadership Quotes From 6 Of America’s Leading Church Planters I had the privilege of hearing.  I was particularly impressed with their collective humility and complete reliance on Jesus for any success they may have experienced.

Dave Ferguson

1. What happened to him (Jimmy Swaggert) can happen to anyone of us.
2. The veteran leaders I admire most are good stewards of their body.
3. Out of control leaders don’t read, don’t doubt and don’t explore new ideas.  Out of control leaders don’t have time to dream.
4. Out of control leaders reduce their margins for what used to be sin.
5. As leaders we will all reproduce who we are.

Shawn Lovejoy

1. If you got in the ministry for an 8-5 job, it doesn’t work that way.
2. I am concerned by a trend I see in ministry with young leaders in we want the fame of gameday without the pain of training.
3. Church planters, they all want to plant and harvest on the same day.
4. Runners who win don’t wait for the ideal conditions to run.
5. You always look like you’re winning on Twitter.
6. My greatest temptation in ministry every single day for 14 days is to substitute what I’m doing for God for my time with God.
7. Faithfulness is more important than fruitfulness.
8. How do we win?  We take our eyes off everything but Him.

Mike Linch

1. Visions are always birthed from burdens.  A great vision always comes about from a burden you have.
2. The beginning part of the burden of the vision isn’t the hard part.  Finishing it is the hard part.
3. God sees something in you…God’s not looking for ability but availability.  There are a lot of people who have ability but not the interest.
4. There are people on the inside that will turn on the vision.
5. My definition of spiritual maturity is “others”.
6. The larger the organization grows the more deluded the vision gets.
7. I see people quit too easily.
8. The guys that are still in it aren’t the brightest and smartest.  They just refuse to quit.
9. The greater the vision and burden, the louder the critic.
10. When we started NorthStar our greatest critics weren’t lost people.  They didn’t care.
11. Some of you your greatest critics are the ones closest to you.
12. When fear sets in you make more mistakes.

Jeff Vanderstelt

1. The biggest warning I can give you if that you can actually plant a church without God in this day an age.
2. I think the really pastors are so depressed on Monday is that Sunday didn’t justify them.
3. Do you know how many pastors know the Bible really well and still have affairs?
4. I’m amazed at how often we confront sin with the Word of God without asking the Spirit of God to convict them of their sin.
5. I love new Christians.  They’re just dumb enough to believe this stuff.
6. If you’re planting a church and don’t think you’re going to face demonic activity you’re kidding yourself.
7. Is the reason we don’t see miraculous things is the way we’re doing church, we don’t need Him anymore?

Derwin Gray

1. One of the greatest resources we have is our ability to cast vision.
2. The Jew and Gentile debate was more than just a circumcision knife.
3. Vision is the God-inspired ability to see a future that does not yet exist, but should.  This future is so Messiah-exalting and life-giving that people run into the future and drag it back to the present.
4. You cannot cast a vision that has not cast a spell over you.
5. An effective vision casting has four parts – The Problem.  The Solution.  Why The Vision Must Be Implemented.  Why The Vision Must Be Implemented NOW.
6. The vision must address a problem.
7. If America was a nation of 100 people, 77 would not be Christians.
8. Churches in America are 10 times more ethnically segregated than their neighborhoods.  Are more 20 times more ethnically segregated than their schools.
9. If you want to know if your church can be multi-ethnic, look at the school closest to it.
10. If 10% of the people at your church are doing 90% of the work that’s your fault.
11. Our vision is to heal a broken planet.
12. Every human being wants to be part of a cause beyond them.
13. Why do we let the 12^th man in Seattle outcheer us?
14. Because people matter to God, they matter to Transformation Church.
15. Cool don’t help you when you get cancer.  Cool don’t help you when your wife leaves you.
16. What is the vortex of our vision – Love.
17. When you are preparing your weekends, are you more concerned about shock and awe or that love reigns?
18. You don’t have pastoral care at your church and people still give tithes and offerings.  They’re idiots.
19. You can sell books but will the world actually change.
20. Transformation Church is not a building but a collection of broken people being made whole.
21. If your people are not evangelistic, what are you telling them about Jesus?
22. We must, by God’s grace, embody the vision.  If not, we are duplicitous.
23. The essence of leadership is embodying what you want people to do.
24. What have we created where it’s odd that high capacity leaders are humble?
25. The most gifted person may not be the right person for your team.
26. Sometimes you got to lose some people for a great vision.  We got to be Jack Bauer sometimes because that dude makes some difficult decisions.
27. Hard decisions must be made.  If you don’t want to make them don’t become a leader.
28. People will give to a big vision.
29. We never have enough money to keep up with what God is doing.
30. Christians love to be busy because it keeps them from engaging people who are lost.
31. You can’t give away what you don’t possess.
32. You learn to pastor by pastoring.

Matt Adair

1. One thing I notice about church planters and church planting families is that you’re angry and depressed.  I know this because of how much you yell on social media.
2. There is this depression on church planters because you thought you’d be more successful.
3. There is depression because you didn’t think it would be this hard.
4. There is depression because you thought you were better than this.
5. There is anger and depression because we’re struggling with our ordinariness.
6. What is so hard is not what’s going on out there but what’s going on in my soul.  There are extraordinary people in the Kingdom and you’re not one of them.
7. The secret to church planting is God is with you.  This is first thing Gideon hears in Judges 12:6.
8. If you want to bless your city you must recover your prophetic voice in preaching…You must help people know what’s going on.
9. Our desire for peace and prosperity will be met by strife and difficulties and pain.  And God has brought this into our life because He loves us.
10. Your preaching isn’t going to win very many battles in your neighborhood unless there’s a purpose to it.
11. You do not have to trust in yourself because the dirty little secret is He’s with you.
12. God uses unlikely people in unlikely times.
13. The issue is not whether you’re the right person to plant a church.  You’re God’s choice to plant a church and He is with you.
14. If God is with you, hell cannot stand against you.
15. Church planting is not easy…But there is not better people out there and there is no better place to be because God is with you.
16. Your job is glorify God by enjoying Him forever.

What is one lesson you can take from the quotes above to make you a better leader?

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