Quotes of Note: Knowing and Loving Those We Serve and Equip

The following “Quotes of Note” are from Chapter Two of Equipping Counselors for Your Church. Chapter Two focuses on knowing our congregation and community before serving our congregation and community. For Quotes of Note from Chapter One, read God’s Grand Vision for His Church. 

• We have to know and love our congregation before we can serve and equip our congregation effectively. 
• We have to be a community before we can reach our community. 
• We have to be in our community before we can reach our community. 
• Biblical counselors are soul physicians who understand people, diagnoses problems, and prescribes solutions—biblically. We are also church cardiologists who understand our church and community, diagnose the heart condition of the culture in which we minister, and prescribes God’s cures—biblically. 
• A relationship with the transforming Person (Christ) leads to transforming leaders (you and your team) relationally leading a transforming process (The 4E Ministry Training Strategy) that the Spirit uses to transforms your church (the Body of Christ) so others (the congregation and community) are also transformed into disciple-makers. 
• We can’t attempt to examine the heart health of others if we are not turning first to the ultimate Soul Physician (Christ) and to mutual spiritual friends (the Body of Christ) to examine our own heart condition. 
• Before we catch God’s future vision we must first diagnose the past history and current condition of our congregation and community. 
• In John 3-4, Jesus models for us that the message is the same, but the methods and means of communication vary because of the personal and cultural differences of the specific audience. 
• In Acts 17, Paul offers their culture a biblical message in a culture-specific manner. 
• Paul is not culturally-influenced; he is culturally-informed so he can be a culture-influencer for Christ. 
• In a culturally-informed manner we influence our culture for Christ by relating Christ’s changeless truth to our changing times. 
• The Bible teaches that we are responsible to apply Christ’s universal calling in culturally-informed ways in our particular ministry context.
• We open our hearts to experience the pain of the hopelessness of our society. We open our eyes to know our society, listening to their earthly story. We open our mouths to share Christ as society’s only hope. We open the Word to explain Scripture, sharing God’s eternal story. 
• If you are going to assess how ready your church is for the relational ministry of speaking the truth in love, then your mindset must be relational connection, not data collection. 
• Engaging in spiritual conversations about spiritual weakness is never easy. However, it is necessary. When Jesus addressed the seven churches of Asia Minor, He pulled no punches in exposing their sin. 
• God calls us to be a church of biblical counseling to our community for His glory. 
• We must diagnose our congregation and community’s readiness, health, and fitness compared to Christ’s vision for His Church. If we don’t, then our application of God’s truth will sound more like us than like how Christ wants us to communicate His timeless truth. 
• There’s nothing Christ-centered about communicating truth with a “my-way-or-the-highway” mentality. 

Join the Conversation

Which quote about knowing and loving our congregation and community resonates with you the most? Why?