I am a big Reggie McNeal fan. Perhaps it is because he is old and Southern Baptist and I am old and a former Southern Baptist. Now if I were just smart and funny like him! The Present Future is one of the first books I read in this journey that I have been on and it is one of the most marked up and dog eared volumes on my shelves.

I have some friends who heard him speak at a conference a few years ago and they brought back the DVD. I had no idea until then that he is also a great speaker. You gotta love it when one who is inside the institutional church system is so insightful and bold. Here are some “Reggisms”.

“The missional church is the most radical re-sorting of Christians since the Reformation. Those who are missional have more in common with those in other tribes than with those in their own tribe who don’t get it.”

“The church is not the destination; the kingdom is the destination. Jesus does not say, ‘Thy church come.’ He spends 40 days before His ascension teaching about the kingdom. Acts closes with the kingdom. Jesus uses ‘church’ twice, but ‘kingdom’ 90 times. When the kingdom breaks out, things change. People’s lives get radically re-altered; their entire worlds get re-ordered.”

“In 1900, 80% of Christians were white, Western, northern hemisphere. In 2000, 80% were non-white, non-Western and southern hemisphere. The kingdom is breaking out all over.”

“The church in North America is not like the Pharisees—we are the Pharisees, and Jesus does not like Pharisees.”

“The ‘post-congregationlist’ category is at 5% of the population and will go to 30% in the next 20 years.”

Thanks to Steve Knight and Guy Muse