Reappearing Church Quotes

“continuing the same things that are not bringing renewal is not going to bring renewal. Lack of commitment is not going to bring renewal. Business as usual will not bring renewal. Accumulating knowledge without putting it into practice will not bring renewal. We need our autopilot patterns interrupted.”
― Mark Sayers, Reappearing Church: The Hope for Renewal in the Rise of Our Post-Christian Culture

“Most churches that have fallen into dead orthodoxy are filled with nice, pleasant, and loyal people. Some even grow in size. Yet, eventually the degenerating dynamic of dead orthodoxy diminishes the power and message of the gospel, mutating into what Dallas Willard has called the gospel of sin management. Willard noted that in some churches, this meant behavior modification, avoiding obvious sins through a kind of religious willpower. In other more left-leaning churches, Willard observed another kind of behavior modification at play—the public affirming of the right social justice causes of the day. Yet these shallow and public forms of Christianized behavior”
― Mark Sayers, Reappearing Church: The Hope for Renewal in the Rise of Our Post-Christian Culture

“We are drowning in freedoms but thirsting for meaning.”
― Mark Sayers, Reappearing Church: The Hope for Renewal in the Rise of Our Post-Christian Culture

“In the post-Christian vision, progress replaces God’s presence as the engine of history.”
― Mark Sayers, Reappearing Church: The Hope for Renewal in the Rise of Our Post-Christian Culture

“The average Westerner processes religion through a crude, street-level model of secularism that is assumed but rarely analyzed.”
― Mark Sayers, Reappearing Church: The Hope for Renewal in the Rise of Our Post-Christian Culture

“Those who desire reform will find themselves being resisted.”
― Mark Sayers, Reappearing Church: The Hope for Renewal in the Rise of Our Post-Christian Culture

“Much of the Western church is operating on the kinetic forward motion of previous moves of God, lounging on a platform built by the service and ministry of passed and passing generations. However, the fuel tank is approaching empty.”
― Mark Sayers, Reappearing Church: The Hope for Renewal in the Rise of Our Post-Christian Culture