"The basic idea in this talk is that every ministry is always making certain kinds of theological assumptions about human nature and about how God works in people's lives. In more technical, theological terms, you could say that every form of ministry has an implicit theological anthropology and an implicit theology of grace. These assumptions are not always conscious or clearly articulated.”

"First, it assumes, and here very reasonably, I'm all in favor of this, that the Bible, as God's inspired word, is in many ways senses the primary instrument through which God works in Christian lives. Second and more controversially, the approach kind of subtly assumes that human beings are shaped above all by contact with Christian knowledge or information. We know in secular life that giving advice never works, we sort of think that because it's Christian advice, it's Bible advice. Now it's going to work."

"So I ask you, what specifically is it that you think you're doing on Sunday? What are you trying to accomplish? What is your goal and what are the main strategies you think are most important that goal. Are you fundamentally trying to teach people about God's vision for human life? Are you fundamentally ultimately trying to help foster a certain kind of religious experience? Is your main goal discipleship, a people who are already Christians, or is it evangelism? These are all different kinds of goals that have different kinds of strategies and theories of change that are implied? Or if you're someone more on the kind of receiving end of ministry, than the one doing the ministering."