The Permanent Revolution Quotes

“In short, apostolic movement involves a radical community of disciples, centered on the lordship of Jesus, empowered by the Spirit, built squarely on a fivefold ministry, organized around mission where everyone (not just professionals) is considered an empowered agent, and tends to be decentralized in organizational structure.”
― Alan Hirsch, The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church

“the main stimulus for the renewal of Christianity will come from the bottom and from the edge, from sectors of the Christian world that are on the margins.”22”
― Alan Hirsch, The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church

“The first apostles of Christ were in the eyes of the world “unlearned and ignorant” men: it was not until the Church had endured a persecution and had grown largely in numbers that Christ called a learned man to be His apostle.31”
― Alan Hirsch, The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church

“Being the church that Jesus intended means that we must participate in God’s eternal purposes for his world. Renewal means more than reinventing ourselves; it means rediscovering the primal power of the Spirit and the gospel already present in the life of the church—reconnecting with this purpose and recovering the forgotten ways. This purpose and potential have always been there, but individuals and communities have largely lost touch with them.”
― Alan Hirsch, The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church

“Apostolic ministry is not just about founding new churches and movements; it is as much about the renewal of existing organizations, that is, helping the church retain its primal movemental nature and stay vibrant. And so it has ongoing relevance for established churches as well.”
― Alan Hirsch, The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church

“How did we ever get to believe that faithfulness involved simply retaining past forms and thinking? With the Creator God as our Father, how did we ever become the socially conservative stiflers of innovation that we are so notoriously perceived to be?”
― Alan Hirsch, The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church

“A missional church is a church that must live the dialectic. It must stay in the journey.”
― Alan Hirsch, The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church

“These are classic insiders—the fussy traditionalists who operate close to the center and seldom break with convention. In such traditionalistic organizations, intelligence and decision making tend to be drawn out from the reservoir of inherited wisdom. These inherited ideas are seen to be inviolable, even sacrosanct.”
― Alan Hirsch, The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church

“Left to their own devices, most organizations tend toward a sort of sociological conservatism that will increasingly forgo engagement with their context in favor of preserving what they see as their repository of inherited ideas. In other words, they turn away from missional engagement and toward an increasingly traditionalist, sentimental interpretation of reality. Instead of looking forward to a possible future of which they are called to be a part, they look back to an idealized past.”
― Alan Hirsch, The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church

“we will never be faithful in the biblical sense if we never move from home base.”
― Alan Hirsch, The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church

“All apostolic ministry in some sense involves this return to the founding message as well as purpose. The missional task that follows is to reinterpret it radically into various contexts. To use the words of leadership gurus Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, the key to dynamic entrepreneurialism is to “preserve the core and stimulate progress.”15 Thus, there is both a continuity and a discontinuity in the revitalization process, involving both a conservative dimension and a radical one. Radical traditionalism involves a rediscovery of the founder’s vision, but it must be matched with spectacular innovations that are as yet undreamed of.16 As such, it is the apostolic intrapreneur’s (the Petrine apostle) basic method of renewal.”
― Alan Hirsch, The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church

“If apostolic refounding is about anything, it is about a return to the sources. Organizational renewal therefore involves the discovery of an organization’s true identity and mission. The authority to bring transformation to the church does not rest in the person of the leader or group but in God’s calling. Therefore, the key to the revitalization of religious organizations is to reappropriate, or recover, their founding charism. When Dallas Willard, an influential theologian and thinker, urges younger leaders to “stir the primal coals of your movement, do what they did, say what they said,” he is wisely encouraging them to be radical traditionalists.”
― Alan Hirsch, The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church

“In essence, the apostle is the one who is most likely to facilitate the emergence of communitas, a particular kind of community that is shaped and formed around a challenge or compelling task.”
― Alan Hirsch, The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church