Quotes from Alan Hirsch

How did we ever get to believe that faithfulness involved simply retaining past forms and thinking? With the Creator God as our Father, how did we ever become the socially conservative stiflers of innovation that we are so notoriously perceived to be?

Because we believe that somewhere in the nest of paradigms contained in the phrase "missional church" lies nothing less that the future viability of Western Christianity.

You simply cannot be a disciple without being a missionary—a sent one. For way too long discipleship has been limited to issues relating to our own personal morality and worked out in the context of the four walls of the church with its privatized religion.

There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!" If the world and everything in it belong to God and come under his direct claim over them in and through Jesus, then there can be no sphere of life that is not radically open to the rule of God. There can be no non-God area in our lives and in our culture.

In essence, the apostle is the one who is most likely to facilitate the emergence of communitas, a particular kind of community that is shaped and formed around a challenge or compelling task.

I think it is fair to say that in the Western church, we have by and large lost the art of disciple making. We have done so partly because we have reduced it to the intellectual assimilation of ideas, partly because of the abiding impact of cultural Christianity embedded in the Christendom understanding of church, and partly because the phenomenon of consumerism in our own day pushes against a true following of Jesus.

Christianity is concerned with the unfolding of the Kingdom of God in this world, not the longevity of organizations.

It is only when the people of God as a whole are activated in a movement that real world transformation takes place.

In short, apostolic movement involves a radical community of disciples, centered on the lordship of Jesus, empowered by the Spirit, built squarely on a fivefold ministry, organized around mission where everyone (not just professionals) is considered an empowered agent, and tends to be decentralized in organizational structure.

A missional church is a church that must live the dialectic. It must stay in the journey.

To be a truly radical disciple does require a relentless evaluation of life's priorities and concerns, together with an ongoing, rigorous critique of our culture, to ensure we are not adopting values that subvert the very life and message we are called to live out.

if we are going to be genuinely Christlike, we will not be conformists! For one, our Lord can hardly be called a conformist. He disturbed the status quo, railed against injustice and lack of mercy, hung out with highly questionable people, and fomented a revolution that called for the overthrow of religious oppression.