#Orange11 Speaker Notes - Andy Stanley
2 Comments Published by Terrace Crawford on 4/27/11 at 9:04 PM.
What you do and who you are is extremely important in the Kingdom of God!
- The church is a movement
- How is it this movement continues to spread?
- 1/3 of the world's population believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God
- When the church first formed you had masters and slaves worshipping together
- The thing that compelled people was this unique morality... this compassion
- Christianity taught that everyone was made in the image of God
- Pagans looked on at this radical movement with awe
- He quoted a writing from Emporer Julian, citing "Why do we not observe that is their charity to strangers and their pretended holiness of their lives that have done the most to increase the spread of Christianity."
- We are stewards of the message of ETERNAL life but we are also stewards of the message of a BETTER life.
- The church is more important than you'll ever imagine... and you are a part of it
- We think being nice is human nature.
- It is not natural to be kind, or give a percentage of your money away, or to forgive...
- What is natural is adultery, lying, stealing, etc.
- The church brought a new normal to the world and it began to stamp out paganism
- Galatians 5:16-19 (Human nature)
- We need to take the teachings of Jesus and live that in such a way that people are moved by it
- We live in a broken world but God has come to restore the broken. We are to shine spotlights on this.
- Galatians 5:22-25 (Fruits of the Spirit)
- All of the laws of our land are to protect us us against human nature
- Look at the last line of this scripture (regarding the Fruits) "against such there is no law."
- Even unbelieving historians say the only way to explain the rise in Christianity is through morality
- What would happen today if the church disappeared?
- Jesus said that we would be known by our "love."
- Adrian Rogers was once questioned on an airline why he was reading the Bible. His reply "The Bible has the solution for sin, sorrow and death."
This post contains my notes from the general session at the Orange Conference.
Labels: Conferences, Youth Pastors
"Jesus said we would be known by our love." If the church will remember that truth, so many other things will fall into place.
Great stuff. Two of our staff are there. Maybe you'll run into them.