Catalyst ’15 – 55 Leadership Quotes From Andy Stanley

As a member of the Catalyst Blog Team and INJOY Stewardship Solutions, I have been bringing you live updates from the much anticipated Catalyst Conference in Atlanta, GA.  The theme for this year’s conference is Awaken The Wonder.

As is their custom, the conference’s final speaker was North Point Community Church’s Andy Stanley.  The following are 55 Leadership Quotes and Lessons from his phenomenal session.

Also, as a special gift to everyone reading these posts, INJOY Stewardship is offering a complimentary downloadable Ebook Discipling Financial Leaders.  Click Here to Download this Free Resource!   Now onto Andy’s thoughts:

1. I love the local church. Catalyst leaders love the local church.
2. Isn’t great on the weekends when everything works perfectly?
3. Is what we do worth people sitting in traffic?
4. The local church is an apologetic for the Gospel.
5. We one another one another.
6. Maybe the next great awakening is our when culture wakes up to the grandness and gloriousness and amazeness of the local church.
7. It was said about Jesus, He embodied grace and truth.
8. Jesus was not the balance of grace of truth. Jesus was the embodiment of grace and truth.
9. Jesus raised the bar so high that He leveled the playing field. “Here’s the standard. I’d like for you to follow me.”
10. Jesus never dumbed down the truth and turned down the grace.
11. The grace/truth tension requires we present the ideal while embracing what is real.
12. Sin gives us job security.
13. To awaken culture to the wonder of the local church, we must distinguish theology from ministry. Jesus never allowed His perfect theology to get in the way of ministry.
14. Theology is what we believe. Ministry is what we do for others because of what we believe.
15. Distinguishing between theology and ministry without compromising ministry.
16. In Jesus’s day, ministry was approached as people were made for the Law rather than the Law was made for people. In other words, children were created to pick up toys.
17. Everyone can follow Jesus.
18. No one who followed Jesus in the first century believed He was the Son of God until after the resurrection. They all ran away at the cross.
19. If you have bad theology it will narrow who you minister to.
20. When we get this right you will be accused of condoning sin.
21. If Jesus would have been worried about guilt by association He would have stayed in Heaven.
22. When churches fail to distinguish between theology and ministry, ministry becomes idealistic and rigid.
23. Rigid ministry breaks down under the weight of the real world.
24. Good parents are guided by situational ethics based upon the needs of their individual children. Rigid parenting will work for only one of your children.
25. The priority to God is not the Law. The priority to God is the people.
26. There was no one Jesus refused to minister to.
27. God’s priority is you, the people.
28. You are more important than my view of anything. A YOU is always more important than a VIEW.
29. Never give up influence unnecessarily.
30. There are questions you should never answer out loud because there is a time and place to spend your influence.
31. There is something more important than making a point.
32. Never make a point at the expense of making a difference.
33. If you lose influence with the people Jesus came to die for, shame on you.
34. His mission was not to be right. He did not leave us here to be right. He left us here to make disciples.
35. Everybody wants to be one anothered.
36. Think twice before answering a question that has the potential to burn a bridge or close a door.
37. Pastors, think twice about your approach that has the potential to burn a bridge or close a door.
38. When people pressure you to take a stand, they are generally pressuring you to take their stand.
39. I view the church as my first audience. I will never say anything outside the church that I haven’t said to my church first. There are also things I would say to my local church that I wouldn’t say to anyone outside the local church.
40. The things I am most often criticized for I have made very, very clear to my local church that I haven’t said outside my local church.
41. You do not owe people outside your congregation an explanation.
42. Preserve influence for later.
43. We are experts at giving away influence unnecessarily.
44. Some things are more important than others. Some things come before others.
45. Love your enemies.
46. It’s hard for us to label who are our enemies.
47. What groups that traditionally push back against your local church? That is who you should figure out how to love.
48. The first thing we do before we show up in a community is figure out how to love people in the community who would traditionally push back against our local church.
49. The city created a sign which tells people how to get to Buckhead Church.
50. We’ve tried to be as difficult as possible to hate.
51. There is nothing in the New Testament that says people should not speak well of us.
52. The church must be seen doing good.
53. Identify your potential enemies and figure out how to love them.
54. We’ve been pretty good at being innocent. We’ve been horrible at being shrewd.
55. Pray for shrewdness.

It has been an honor to be part of this amazing conference.  And do not forget to click HERE or on the image below for your free resource on discipling the financial leaders in your church.