The Just Church Quotes

“The call to the work of justice is therefore not God sending his church out to a place where God cannot be found. Rather, God is inviting us into the place where he is already at work.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“Most of my life—even as a leader and a pastor—has been involved in the parts of Scripture that deal with me. Now I’m also focused on the parts of Scripture that deal with loving my neighbor.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“But you need to be sure you are engaging this path as disciples rather than merely as concerned citizens or adventurous do-gooders.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“lay the broadest possible foundation for what is to come: the work to Explore (find real neighbors to love) and then Engage in the ministry of justice.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“Healthy justice ministry will involve all three types of engagement: universal, local, and global.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“a church body that understands justice as part of God’s call to his people and has some sense of what injustice looks like in the world today.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“What you seek to do, however, is to engage in a process by which the Holy Spirit works biblical justice into the very discipleship DNA of your church.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“The role of prayer is vital—indeed, we cannot meaningfully encounter the God of justice without it.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“This missional call to the work of justice can lay a solid foundation for lifelong discipleship and the pursuit of meaningful, Kingdom-relevant careers in the next generation.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“Second, we will do well to listen closely to the passion of our youth and carefully make appropriate room for their leadership in our congregations.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“First, we must provide a steady stream of good educational and experiential tools to our youth and students.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“Who will do the work of building a deep and lasting theological and educational foundation under these passionate people?”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“The onus is therefore on church leadership to lead rather than label today’s youth.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“The impatience with injustice that youth often express is sometimes dismissed as lacking theological grounding or gets labeled with pejoratives such as “slactivism,” the sense that the “slacker” generation is angry about these issues but that aside from shooting off their mouths, they are not doing anything about”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“While passion for justice often exists among today’s youth, it is not always accompanied by a theological foundation that grounds that passion to the bedrock truth of the character of God. My personal sense is that the onus for this problem lies not with these youth, but with their parents and pastors.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“Hope emanates from the God of justice who hears the cries of the oppressed and effects their rescue. And hope comes from the very real stories of what happens when God’s people show up in the lives of people like Marta.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“the mixture of about nine parts hope to every one part dark reality is just about right. Where does the hope come from? It comes from at least two places.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“Don’t teach on justice (especially from the pulpit) until you are ready to lead the church toward doing justice.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“Injustice is what happens when someone uses their power to take from someone else the good things God intended them to have: their life, their liberty, their dignity, or the fruit of their love or their labor.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“It is actually possible for the church to engage injustice with efficacy. It’s doable because God is with us and wants to work wondrously through us.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“God’s plan for ending injustice in the world is the church.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“God hates this injustice and wants it to stop.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“God is deeply and passionately concerned for victims of violent oppression in our world.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“Preaching on biblical justice should be as common as preaching on evangelism, worship, and tithing.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“It may be helpful to reflect on the fact that those who perpetrate violent injustice upon the widows, orphans, and aliens of our world have not jumped haphazardly into their roles as slave-owners, pimps, and brothel keepers. They occupy their roles with a premeditated, focused, and sometimes deadly purposefulness.19 And while these perpetrators of injustice may be aware that good people sometimes have strong reactions to the abuse of the vulnerable, abusers also know that people of good will often lack staying power. When we do show up, we have a tendency to arrive late and leave early.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“what these victims really need is a church mobilized to engage for the long haul.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“the work of justice is something for which most churches are unprepared.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“If faith is a combination of belief and trust, then risk must continue to factor into our church experience.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“the servant’s inability to risk displeases the master greatly.”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation

“taking God at his Word and living as if it’s true. This is just the sort of risk-taking spirit that engaging in the work of biblical justice requires of us. But how do we prepare? How do we ease ourselves out of our risk aversion?”
― Jim Martin, The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation