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As I was rummaging through our church office looking for the Portuguese audio CD’s, I came across a few books that I had never even heard of by authors I have grown to have a great amount of respect for. The first book that I saw (and conveniently borrowed), is the Habits of Highly Effective Churches, by George Barna. Mr. Barna is a number-crunching-pollster who has devoted his energies to researching why some churches explode while (most) others fizzle.

In his book, he discusses exactly what the “other guys” are doing to experience the growth. I’m only 40 pages into it, and there are so many good quotes. I keep interrupting my wife from whatever she’s doing to say, “Oh, wow…Listen to this! …” or “Preach it , brotha! …AMEN!”

Some favorite Barna Quotes so far:

“I’m willing to bet that when the Lord examines a church His criteria will have little to do with attendance statistics, budgeting complexities or program breadth. If His critique of the Pharisee’s is any indication,His analysis will hinge on the depth of people’s commitment to making their faith real and pure.” (p. 17)

“There are more than a quarter of a million churches in America that are not highly effective in ministry–roughly nine out of every ten churches! If you believe, as I do, that the church is the single most important organization in America, then this is a situation of crisis proportions.” (pp. 18, 19)

“If God has called your church into existence, then He intends to bless it.” (p. 25)

Categorized as Culture, Books & Film, Ministry