Andy Stanley

What is the faith of the next generation worth? Everything.

Confessing to one another that you aren’t getting what you want is a key ingredient for a relationship that goes the distance. Watch and share the full message on YouTube: youtu.be/sJW3ZeSH_7c

You can be successful and still feel like something’s missing from your life. Leaders who lead with meaning focus on where they’re going, how their story fits together, and who they’re serving, not just what they achieve. Listen to The Meaning of Your Life with @arthurbooks on the latest Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast: apple.co/4csPmx5

Watch my full interview with @johnpauldickson on YouTube: youtu.be/5dNpdNAkDXg

If the Gospels are reliable accounts of actual events, Jesus rose from the dead, thus validating what he said about himself and you! Forgiven. Loved. Invited.

Jesus had no patience with “good people” who weren’t good to people.

The secret to living a meaningful life: become a means to an end that doesn’t end with you.

“The moment you have a self at all, there is a possibility of putting yourself first—wanting to be the centre—wanting to be God, in fact.” C.S. Lewis / Mere Christianity

Catch up on Part 3 of Inflection Point on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=CTCBhn…

When you are pouring out, it creates an opportunity for God to pour in.

@CarriePrejean1 “Christ did not die to restart the Old Covenant. He fulfilled it.” Thank you!

I used to be a Protestant and think all I needed was my Bible. But… then I started asking the question no one wanted to answer: Who actually has the authority to interpret Scripture? That question came from my study of the theological heresy of dispensationalism. What I found shocked me. I learned, it isn’t ancient Christianity. It didn’t come from the Apostles. It didn’t come from the Church Fathers. It began in the 1800s with John Nelson Darby. A brand new theological system; a heresy which has created confusion among Christian’s. It divided Israel and the Church into two separate peoples of God. It created two covenants. It pushed fulfillment into the future. It taught that prophecy still depends on a geopolitical nation-state called “Israel” which was founded by atheists in 1948. I looked deeper and asked…what does that ultimately lead to? I was shocked to discover their belief of a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. The one the Lord predicted would be destroyed in Matthew and it was in 70AD. "Jesus left the temple area and was going away, when his disciples approached him to point out the temple buildings. He said to them in reply, 'You see all these things, do you not? Amen, I say to you, there will not be left here a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.'" Matthew 24:1-2 This all happened. Jesus predicted it and it was fulfilled. In 70 AD the Temple was destroyed. The altar was gone. The Levitical priesthood stopped functioning. The animal sacrifices ended. That is not a minor detail. The Mosaic covenant was inseparable from Temple sacrifice. Without the Temple, the sacrificial system of the Old Covenant could not continue. In its place, rabbinic Judaism emerged. No longer centered on Temple sacrifice, but on Torah study and synagogue life. The sacrificial order did not continue. It was finished. So then why would Christian Zionists believe the temple would be built back up again? For what? To bring back animal sacrifices? This goes against Jesus’s own words. The Church teaches that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is final, perfect, and complete. The Old Covenant sacrifices are over because they were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “It is finished.” The Temple is fulfilled in Christ. The priesthood is fulfilled in Christ. The sacrifices are fulfilled in Christ. In the Old Covenant, a sacrifice wasn’t complete unless it was eaten. The Passover lamb had to be consumed. So when Jesus says, “This is My Body. This is My Blood,” He is revealing Himself as the true and final Lamb that was slain. The Eucharist lead me to the Catholic Church. I realized it is not symbolic. It is participation in the once-for-all sacrifice of Calvary. There is no future blood offering coming. There is no need for a third temple. To suggest that redemption requires a return to animal sacrifice is to deny the sufficiency of the Cross. That is why the Catholic Church does not embrace Zionism. Any system that shifts salvation history away from Christ and back to land, ethnicity, or political power distorts the Gospel. When theology is detached from the Cross and tied to a modern nation detached from Christ, It no longer is Christianity. Christ did not die to restart the Old Covenant. He fulfilled it. In Christ, Jew and Gentile are all welcomed into this new covenant. Through baptism, we are grafted into the covenant promises. The people of God are defined not by bloodline but by union with Jesus Christ, our King. We are not waiting for another altar. We already have one. A priest once told me that in the Catholic Mass, the altar serves as the sacred table where the one and only sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the true Victim, is made present, with the priest acting in persona Christi to offer this Holy Sacrifice, symbolically uniting the faithful to Christ's sacrifice on Calvary, thereby making the Eucharist the source and summit of Christian life. And that truth led me home to the Catholic Church.

@ewaldrop Wow… Thanks for sharing! Love that last question.

Hey @AndyStanley , Sharing your 5 questions for Developing a sermon with pastors in Togo, Africa: What do I want them to know? Why do I want them to know it? What do I want them to do? Why do I want them to do it? How can I help them remember?🙏🏻🎉❤️🔥

You’ll never be a leader worth following if you don’t lead yourself well.

“About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (M. 27:46 NIV). “Here we see Jesus plumbing the uttermost depths of the human situation, so that there might be no place that we might go where he has not been before.” Barclay, William. The Gospel of Matthew. The New Daily Study Bible. Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press

Don’t be content with making a point. Make a difference.

@edwards21228 Thank you Melvin!

To all of the sexual abuse survivors who had their value reduced to stock market prices by the Attorney General of the United States yesterday, I promise there’s One who still knows your worth. Ask me how I know. m.youtube.com/watch?v=lfsawi…

@EricHimelick @cduhigg Thank you.

@AndyStanley @cduhigg I really appreciate your podcast! I learn something every time I listen.

One of the most effective ways to drive high performance is by fostering psychological safety, which empowers teams to share ideas sooner, speak honestly, and engage in the work with more energy. Listen to the latest Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast with @cduhigg now: apple.co/45KBYAU

“Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.” C.S. Lewis / Mere Christianity

@PreacherBo Thank you!

Dear Pastors and future pastors everywhere, You may well be seeing, on X, continued posts by a pastor from Nebraska doubling and tripling down on assertions that canceling any service due to bad weather is nothing but laziness. His latest post asserts that church steps can easily be shoveled. He seems unaware of this very mind-blowing fact: Church members do not live at the foot of the church driveway. Our members travel to our church each service from five different counties. When considering whether or not we need to cancel a service, we carefully consider where they come from, what their steps and driveways at home are likely to be like, and what the roads they will have to travel to get here are like. Contrary to his snarky claims about lazy pastors, no pastor has the physical ability to clear thousands of miles of roads to make sure his people can get safely to church. In South Carolina this past weekend, a church in the mold and mindset of the pastor from Nebraska had services – and are now down one member. A senior citizen widow had car trouble on the way to church, broke down on the side of the road, and died in the cold a quarter mile later as she walked looking for help. Good pastors consider possibilities like that. Egomaniacs rail on those good pastors as “lazy.” Be a good pastor. Ignore Pope Pumpernickel of Nebraska, and take care of your people. P.S. For those who are not sure why I will not (yet) name the man, it is because, especially with preachers, I very much try to rightly be seen as attacking stupid ideas, not the people who hold them.