These last three days I have been dispatched by INJOY Stewardship Solutions to provide live-blogging the ReThink Leadership and Orange Conference. This is one of my go-to events each year. Led by Reggie Joiner and Carey Nieuwhof, I feel this annual event provides the greatest amount of informative and relevant leadership content available. This year is proving to be no different even though it is an online experience.
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The next speaker was Andy Stanley. Andy needs no introduction. He founded Atlanta-based North Point Ministries in 1995. Today, NPM is comprised of six churches in the Atlanta area and a network 30 churches around the globe, collectively serving nearly 70,000 people weekly. As host of Your Move with Andy Stanley, with over 5 million messages consumed each month through television and podcast, and author of 20-plus books.
The following are 41 Leadership Quotes from his session on how churches can invite the next generation in your church to a dynamic faith and how they think:
- The win for us during this season is to learn everything we can so we will be better next time around and we’ll be more efficient next time around.
- The new normal is going to look a lot like the old normal and we’ll forget what we learned last time around.
- What’s the faith of the next generation worth? The faith of the next generation is worth everything.
- A great church is a church with people who love Jesus, led by people who love like Jesus, and led by people who have a plan for the next generation to be loved and love like Jesus.
- Churches without a plan for the next generation are not great churches.
- Churches that have a plan for the next generation generally do better as a church.
- The churches who are fully-invested in the next generation have more resources and have better leaders. Resourced people are future-thinking people. Resourced-people want to make sure the future is better.
- Organize your church toward the next generation in terms of budgeting, staffing, and everything else.
- Organizations do what they are organized to do.
- All the information and misinformation in the world is at their fingertips 24/7… In how we teach the Bible, we have not totally embraced this reality.
- They are a meaning and security quest – not a truth quest…. The next generation is looking beyond happiness.
- Inclusion, diversity, and sustainability are moral issues… For this generation, these are not political issues. They are moral issues. This is a matter of right and wrong.
- Like every generation, there are hypocrites.
- Love is their ethic, but it’s loosely and conveniently defined… It is still OK to break up with your girlfriend with a text.
- Frame the invitation into a dynamic faith around an invitation to follow Jesus rather than an invitation to pray a prayer, or a noun. The noun is to become a Christian.
- The term “Christian” is not a dynamic term anymore. “Christian” is a label. That label has lost its dynamic.
- Don’t abandon being a Christian, just add to it by adding a Follower of Jesus.
- The way we were raised is being a Christian was more about what a person believes than what a person does.
- Following Jesus brings the concept of lordship and someone worth following.
- Doing is what makes all the difference.
- This is about changing language, not changing your faith.
- Establish the Gospels as the text that informs their faith, not the entire Bible.
- I’m not trying to deny the value of the entire Bible. I’m trying to elevate the significance and the relevance of the Gospels.
- The Old Testament got Jesus here but the New Testament that we find what He’s like and what He did.
- “The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming – not the realities themselves” – Hebrews 10:1
- Shadows always distort the nature of what’s behind the shadow.
- Who has all authority? Who are we asking children and students to submit to? It’s not a book. It’s a person. Jesus.
- The invitation into a dynamic faith must be centered around the person of Jesus.
- The Christian faith did not begin with Genesis. The Christian faith began with Jesus.
- The Bible did not create Christianity. Christians did not create Christianity. The resurrection launched Christianity. He is the epicenter of our faith.
- This should have always been taught but in the pre-internet world it didn’t matter much…. They have access to everything in the Bible without ever owning a Bible.
- Inviting this generation to a faith based the entire Bible is a non-starter because they can all discover those parts of the Bible that you know are not about what you are teaching them.
- They’re going to ask good questions…. They are far less inclined to adopt a pre-suppositional approach to their faith.
- We need to adjust, not our theology, but our approach. We need to adjust our sales.
- Our faith can withstand the onslaught of the critics if we build our faith on the right foundation. The right foundation is the Gospels. The foundation of our faith is a person Jesus through the resurrection.
- Anchor their orthopraxy to Jesus’ new covenant command. Orthodoxy is right belief. Orthopraxy is right practice.
- Love is our common ground.
- We are told exactly what love looks like. In the Gospels we see this brand of love illustrated through Jesus’ life. In the Epistles we see this brand of love applied in Paul’s life.
- Following Jesus is not about a prayer that you pray. Following Jesus is about a life that you live. At the center of this life is that ethic of love.
- The dynamic of faith is not what we believe. The dynamic of faith is what we do. Being a Christian, there’s no dynamic there anymore. But following Jesus… that what makes faith real, practical, and that type of faith changed the world.
- What does love require of me?
What an incredible way to start Day 3! ReThink Leadership now begins!!! Keep checking back throughout the day as more content will be coming from Reggie Joiner and Carey Nieuwhof.
Once again, don’t forget to purchase your giving talks. This resource will save you time and stress. It will also help you exponentially increase your weekly giving. Click HERE or on the image provided to purchase!Live Blog – 99 Leadership Quotes From From Orange Conference Day 3 Opening Session