Clint Walker

“What led you to visit our church? The question began as an innocent conversation starter. I ask guests questions about themselves and their families. I do my best to get to know them, and to make the conversation about them. But, at some point, my curiosity gets the best of me. Out of the dozens of churches near them, what was the main factor that prompted them to try our church? The answer still surprises me. “We visited the church’s website.” We now hear that response from approximately seven out of ten first-time guests. Guests use Google to search for local churches, and they look at different church websites. They see the church sign driving by, and decided to look up the website. They hear a conversation about the church, and check it out by visiting the website.”
― Thom S. Rainer, Becoming a Welcoming Church

“Paul is not only urging and requesting but actually embodying what he elsewhere calls ‘the ministry of reconciliation’. God was in the Messiah, reconciling the world to himself, he says in 2 Corinthians 5.19; now, we dare to say, God was in Paul reconciling Onesimus and Philemon.”
― N.T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God: Two Book Set

“First, there are a lot of those children. The Millennial generation, those Americans born between 1980 and 2000, is the largest generation in America’s history. They are seventy-eight million strong. And though only about one out of four attend church with any degree of consistency, there are still almost twenty million or more who will show up at a church. And guess who is coming to church with the Millennials? Their kids. Some call them Gen Z, and others call them iGen. In Jean Twenge’s book, iGen, she describes this generation in this subtitle: “Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy—and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood.” Whew. While the author offers some fascinating insights to the kids of this generation, one thing about them is totally clear: Their parents want them safe and protected wherever they are, including church.”
― Thom S. Rainer, Becoming a Welcoming Church

“Taylor is not only interested in understanding how “the secular” emerged; he is also an acute observer of how we’re all secular now. The secular touches everything. It not only makes unbelief possible; it also changes belief—it impinges upon Christianity (and all religious communities). So Taylor’s account also diagnoses the roots and extent of Christianity’s assimilation—and hints at how we might cultivate resistance.”
― James K.A. Smith, How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor