The Disciple-Making Pastor Quotes

“The morality of need. The pastor preaches to minds that believe bigger is better; the more spectacular the more important; the most important thing about life is that it is enjoyed; basic needs are a nice home, two cars, a three-week paid vacation, several weekends away; life has cheated you unless you have a Caribbean cruise, a DVD player, and an iPod. People have a corrupted sense of need. Needs become values, they take on their own morality. The language of need has replaced the language of greed.”
― Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor: Leading Others on the Journey of Faith

“When we begin to live for others, we will begin to have the same effect on others as Jesus did.”
― Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor: Leading Others on the Journey of Faith

“Eugene Peterson has said, “American culture is stubbornly resistant to the way of Jesus.”5 The culture is strongly individualistic; the church is to be strongly communal. The culture is impatient; the church is to be persevering. The culture is celebrity-ridden; the church is to be a culture of humility. The culture celebrates competence; the church’s first priority is dependence. The way of Jesus, then, is one of community, and submission, service, and patience in that community. Jesus’ way is the road of humility, living in a state of brokenness before God. Jesus’ way is a people anxious to depend on God rather than on competence alone.”
― Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor: Leading Others on the Journey of Faith

“Evangelicals are too easily duped by the latest way to reach people, whether it be the Internet, nifty brochures, or musical extravaganzas. The entire approach puts more responsibility on the leadership to be creative and raise funds than it does on the members of the church to effectively penetrate their worlds for Christ.”
― Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor: Leading Others on the Journey of Faith

“Jesus described a disciple as one who abides in Him, is obedient, bears fruit, glorifies God, has joy, and loves (see John 15:7–17).”
― Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor: Leading Others on the Journey of Faith

“Look at the bestselling Christian books, listen to the television evangelist, talk to the average parishioner; the common thread is a preoccupation with felt needs. If the church is going to obey Christ, this must stop.”
― Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor: Leading Others on the Journey of Faith

“We are too easily satisfied with conventional success: bodies, bucks, and buildings. The average Christian resides in the comfort zone of “I pay the pastor to preach, administrate, and counsel. I pay him, he ministers to me. . . . I am the consumer, he is the retailer. . . . I have the needs, he meets them. . . . That’s what I pay for.”
― Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor: Leading Others on the Journey of Faith

“The local-church thinker says, “We are building a great church.” The kingdom thinker says, “We are taking the rule of Christ to the world.”
― Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor: Leading Others on the Journey of Faith

“The church best glorifies God by making disciples, simply because fruit-bearing believers glorify God.”
― Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor: Leading Others on the Journey of Faith

“The uneducated Christian waits until he feels the prompting of the Spirit before he takes action. The Word-filled believer takes action based upon the facts of God’s commands, regardless of how he feels about it.”
― Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor: Leading Others on the Journey of Faith

“This is the real work of the pastor, and no secular methodologies will help him do it. That calls for the supernatural work of God’s Spirit, to interest people in being disciples, learning how to reproduce and reach the world for Christ.”
― Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor: Leading Others on the Journey of Faith

“When certain characteristics of growing churches become the “holy grail,” simply because they work, not because they are biblically sound, then pragmatism has become an idol.”
― Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor: Leading Others on the Journey of Faith

“It takes five years to establish a discipleship flow and have it bear fruit within the church. Many pastors and parishioners simply don’t possess the spiritual stomach for such a journey.”
― Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor: Leading Others on the Journey of Faith

“When people unqualified for leadership start making the decisions of spiritual leaders, they will make many bad decisions that will not take the church in the direction God would have it go.”
― Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor: Leading Others on the Journey of Faith

“The lack of good lay leadership—people from the marketplace who are fruit-bearing believers, leaders who are disciples and disciple makers, men and women who model and reproduce themselves in the eager growers within their spheres of influence—debilitates the local church.”
― Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor: Leading Others on the Journey of Faith

“The reason the church has not changed the world is not just because of warfare with the world, the flesh, and the devil. Blame goes to the good guys as well, for the evangelical church has failed to produce a healthy product.”
― Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor: Leading Others on the Journey of Faith

“Before you start making disciples in the church, count the cost; don’t start unless you plan to finish.”
― Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor: Leading Others on the Journey of Faith

“The chief barrier to effective discipleship is not that people do not have the ability to become spiritually mature, but they lack the passion, perspective, priorities, and perseverance to develop their spiritual lives. Most Christians know that spiritual growth is important, personally beneficial, and expected, but few attend churches that push them to grow or provide the resources necessary to facilitate that growth. Few believers have relationships that hold them accountable for spiritual development. In the end it boils down to personal priorities. For most of us, regardless of our intellectual assent to the importance of Christian growth, our passions lay elsewhere—and our schedule and energy follow those passions. Most believers, it turns out, are satisfied to engage in a process without regard for the product.12”
― Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor: Leading Others on the Journey of Faith