Neil Cole > Quotes

“I have come to understand church as this: the presence of Jesus among His people called out as a spiritual family to pursue His mission on this planet.”
― Neil Cole, Church 3.0: Upgrades for the Future of the Church

“Attendance on Sundays does not transform lives; Jesus within their hearts is what changes people.”
― Neil Cole, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens

“Instead of bringing people to church so that we can then bring them to Christ, let's bring Christ to people where they live.”
― Neil Cole, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens

“There are few character traits that stand out in this world more than a generous heart.”
― Neil Cole, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens

“We have raised the bar so high on how church is done that few believe they could ever do it themselves. The dark side of this endeavor is that we have lowered the bar of what is means to be a Christian, such that simply showing up to the weekly one-hour event with some regularity and a checkbook is all it takes.”
― Neil Cole, Church 3.0: Upgrades for the Future of the Church

“God never downloads the whole plan at once; you have to discover it along the way. This is because the greater goal is not that we accomplish something but that we grow more intimate with our Lord. Those who listen well to God will find that God listens well to them, and they will accomplish a lot more. In”
― Neil Cole, Journeys to Significance: Charting a Leadership Course from the Life of Paul

“We would do much better as leaders in the Church to learn at the feet of the farmer rather than study with the CEO of a corporation.”
― Neil Cole, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens

“If we cannot multiply churches, we will never see a movement. If we cannot multiply leaders we will never multiply churches. If we cannot multiply disciples, we will never multiply leaders. The way to see a true church multiplication movement is to multiply healthy disciples, then leaders, then churches, and finally movements-in that order.”
― Neil Cole, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens

“Live secure in Christ, rather than trying to protect your position in the church. We need to change our values as leaders. If we’re not willing to give away our positions to others by equipping them for the work of service, we don’t deserve the positions we have. Our identity and security are to be in Christ, not in a title or role in a religious organization.”
― Neil Cole, Primal Fire: Reigniting the Church with the Five Gifts of Jesus

“With a top-down exoskeleton structure of church, delegation is critical. Commands are passed down, layer to layer, and are subject to confusion, corruption, and condescension. The church is slow-moving and slow-changing.”
― Neil Cole, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens

“When the apostles are apostolizing”
― Neil Cole, Primal Fire: Reigniting the Church with the Five Gifts of Jesus

“The journey to significance starts with the mere willingness to surrender the status quo and take the first step of faith into the adventure.”
― Neil Cole, Journeys to Significance: Charting a Leadership Course from the Life of Paul

“We all know people whose position and title are more respected than their person, and that is a tragedy.”
― Neil Cole, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens

“The only time worship and service are put together in Scripture has nothing to do with sound systems, pews, sermons, or worship bands. It is a twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week expression of Christ’s life in us. In Romans 12:1 and 2, Paul writes that we are to present our own bodies to be His temple. He writes, “I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
― Neil Cole, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens

“Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.” Hardship is what makes the story of our lives more compelling in the telling. The”
― Neil Cole, Journeys to Significance: Charting a Leadership Course from the Life of Paul

“Church begins with Jesus: who He is and what He has done. It is all about Jesus, and if it begins
to be about something else, then it stops being the church as Jesus meant it to be.”
― Neil Cole, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens

“The reality is that as long as we invest in human-driven efforts, we will never see what we all really want to see.”
― Neil Cole, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens

“Success built simply on talent, in the absence of the necessary substance of true, hard-won character, will always be short-lived and does not lead to personal fulfillment. Life will pimp your talent and suck it out of you, if you let it, leaving you with deep loneliness and regrets. Perhaps”
― Neil Cole, Journeys to Significance: Charting a Leadership Course from the Life of Paul

“Let us all remember that it is not our own reputations that are at stake in the missions to which we are called. It is His. The successes and the setbacks are His. It is His rejection, His reception—not ours. These”
― Neil Cole, Journeys to Significance: Charting a Leadership Course from the Life of Paul

“The core issue, where all this becomes most difficult, is in giving up control. We are afraid of all hell breaking loose, but our in-securities and resulting control have often kept all heaven from breaking loose.”
― Neil Cole, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens

“All of us long for success throughout our lives, but we should long to see greater significance later in life and not see it wasted on our younger years. Success, in and of itself, is a heavy burden to bear; to bear it without a firm foundation of maturity and strong character can lead to great personal destruction. I”
― Neil Cole, Journeys to Significance: Charting a Leadership Course from the Life of Paul

“In a top-down hierarchical structure, delegation of authority is important. But there is a vast difference between delegated authority and distributed authority. All authority comes from God. True authority is recognized and granted from those who follow; however, sometimes that authority is forced by position, power, or even the threat of violent enforcement. This is how the world operates, but the Kingdom of God is not to be that way.”
― Neil Cole, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens

“If you want to win this world to Christ, you are going to have to sit in the smoking section. That is where lost people are found, and if you make them put their cigarette out to hear the message they will be thinking about only one thing: "When can I get another cigarette?”
― Neil Cole, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens

“God sees only the righteousness of Jesus when He looks at me because all my shame, pain, and blame were taken by Jesus, and I was given His goodness in exchange.”
― Neil Cole, PRAY: Finding Ways For Ordinary People To Connect With God In All Of Life

“The true well-being of the church: when she cannot count on anything anymore but God's promises.
-Johannes Hoekendijk”
― Neil Cole, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens

“Leadership that rests on title is weak. Leadership that rests in a cause and inspires others to follow is strong.”
― Neil Cole, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens

“Every church throughout history whose members were willing to surrender their lives for the sake of Christ witnessed dramatic and spontaneous growth.”
― Neil Cole, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens

“Can the church stop its puny, hack dreams of trying to "make a difference in the world" and start dreaming God-sized dreams of making the world different? Can the church invent and prevent, redeem and redream, this postmodern future?
-Leonard Sweet (Soul Tsunami)”
― Neil Cole, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens

“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. Søren Kierkegaard”
― Neil Cole, PRAY: Finding Ways For Ordinary People To Connect With God In All Of Life

“Another claims, "Every Christian is a church planter, every home is a church, and every church building is a
training center.”
― Neil Cole, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens