The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace QUOTES

1 " allegedly abandoned identities as unbelievers. Today too many churches believe that we can reach the world with the message of Christ by appealing to people with the things of the world, with spectacle, showmanship, and production. Paul never thinks to do this. He never suggests that more of what you left behind is the best route to what lies ahead. You don’t win godly saints in worldly ways. You don’t turn sinners into saints with a worldly message. "

― Jared C. Wilson , The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace

2 " The primary way we reveal God’s glory in Christ is by saturating our preaching in the gospel of grace. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). If our sermons present people with the law alone or give them a list of to-dos or advice to follow, we will only exacerbate their sense of alienation when they fail to do everything we’ve told them to do to experience success as a Christian. "

― Jared C. Wilson , The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace

3 " Leader after leader, religious consumer after consumer, may come to you with a laundry list of reasons why you should abandon this post. “Shouldn’t you be more creative?” No, this is nonnegotiable. “You should talk more about politics.” No, this is nonnegotiable. “Why aren’t you being more applicational?” This is nonnegotiable. “Not every text is about Jesus.” No, the whole Bible is about Jesus. This is nonnegotiable. "

― Jared C. Wilson , The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace

4 " So how do we extricate ourselves and our churches from the spirit of consumerism and pragmatism that has infected the church and reclaim the essence of biblical Christianity? What we need is to repent of decades of relying upon pragmatic methodology and materialist theology and to reclaim the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ as the power of salvation for anybody, anywhere, anytime. The United States, in particular, desperately needs churches to recommit to the countercultural supernaturalism of biblical Christianity. This entails a greater commitment to rely on the Spirit working through his prescribed mean, not ours. "

― Jared C. Wilson , The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace

5 " On the other hand, the fruitful crowd seems to imply that ministers who are not concerned about the growth of their churches are not as faithful as they claim to be. They suspect the faithful crowd of . . . well, laziness, I suppose. Or simply not being good at their jobs. "

― Jared C. Wilson , The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace

6 " The Metrics of Grace (Ch. 3) 1. A growing esteem for Jesus Christ 2. A discernible spirit of repentance 3. A dogged devotion to the Word of God 4. An interest in theology and doctrine 5. An evident love for God and neighbor "

― Jared C. Wilson , The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace

7 " Don’t miss that statement by James Gilmore: “The only thing of value the church has to offer is the gospel. "

― Jared C. Wilson , The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace

8 " I know, I know. Many of us come from traditional church backgrounds where doctrine was all that mattered and the people were cold or harsh or uncaring about their neighbors. That’s another way to be upside down and antigospel. "

― Jared C. Wilson , The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace

9 " You’re just a worker. The church is God’s field, God’s building. The church belongs to him, and he will cultivate you, he will build you, he will sustain you, he will empower you, he will nourish you, he will transform you, and he will save you. "

― Jared C. Wilson , The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace

10 " The Holy Spirit does not always follow our formulas. “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). In preaching Acts 2:43 (“and awe came upon every soul”), my friend Ray Ortlund said, “That’s not something you can put in the worship bulletin: ‘10:00 a.m. worship in song. 10:30 a.m. awe comes down. "

― Jared C. Wilson , The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace

11 " The variety of styles and contexts found within this church movement gives the illusion of innovation and longevity, but when we begin to draw comparisons, we find that they are all similar in a few central ways—not theological convictions or spiritual concerns but assumptions about what best serves and attracts people. That latter concern, attractiveness, has come to define the movement. If there is anything that unifies the myriad flavors into a single category, it’s this phrase: the attractional church. "

― Jared C. Wilson , The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace

12 " An attractional church conducts worship and ministry according to the desires and values of potential consumers. This typically leads to the dominant ethos of pragmatism throughout the church. If a church determines its target audience prefers old-fashioned music, then that’s what they feature in order to attract those people. "

― Jared C. Wilson , The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace

13 " Let me play my hand, if you haven’t seen it already. My goal in this book is to convince you that your church and its slate of programs and ministries—no matter how successful they have been in attracting people—should be centered on the good news of the finished work of Jesus Christ. The attractional model cannot be the foundation for your methods and programs. It must give way to the gospel because the gospel is where the power of God is manifest. The gospel swallows up our pragmatic paradigms like a white dwarf swallows planets. Pragmatism has a place, but it’s not at the center. We must be gospel centered. "

― Jared C. Wilson , The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace

14 " More recently, American evangelicalism can trace the current incarnation of ministry pragmatism to the days of the Second Great Awakening and the work of Charles Finney. Finney openly believed that revivals were something any knowledgeable person could generate by utilizing the right methods. "

― Jared C. Wilson , The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace

15 " The word gospel, from the Greek word evangelion, means “good news.” The gospel refers to the good news that God sent his Son Jesus to live a sinless life, die a substitutionary death, and rise from the dead so that sinners who repent and trust in Jesus will be forgiven and have eternal life. We can expand this or shorten it, but this is a basic summation of the message we are called to share with others. "

― Jared C. Wilson , The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace

16 " As my friend Joel Lindsey has written, “A gospel-centered church is so because the gospel is the engine that propels its mission. . . . The gospel is the primary lens through which to view the world and the people and things in it.”5 In other words, the gospel isn’t just a fad or style you lay over your philosophy of ministry—something traditional, something Baptist, something Reformed—as if “gospel-centrality” were an Instagram filter for your church. "

― Jared C. Wilson , The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace

17 " A church that emphasizes evangelism over discipleship has not entirely understood the purpose of the church. "

― Jared C. Wilson , The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace

18 " Every time Barna, Gallup, or Lifeway releases the latest survey results on theological beliefs among confessing evangelicals, we see further slippage in those affirming the basic tenets of Christian orthodoxy. Fewer people accept the exclusivity of Christ for salvation, the existence of hell, the infallibility of the Bible. Not only is our nation becoming less Christian, but the evangelical church is becoming less Christian. "

― Jared C. Wilson , The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace

19 " Don’t forget what you are: a servant. A waiter. A busser. But it’s not enough to remember what you are. "

― Jared C. Wilson , The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace

20 " I was once speaking to a crowd of Christian college students, and after my sermon a young man approached me to challenge my use of the phrase “Christ took the wrath of God.” He wanted to argue against my affirmation of the penal substitution view of the atonement. While I don’t think penal substitution is the only facet of Christ’s atoning work, I do think it is the most important "

― Jared C. Wilson , The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace