Jack Miller, Outgrowing the Ingrown Church

Last week I finished reading the late Jack Miller's Outgrowing the Ingrown Church. First published twenty years ago (1986), this book calls leaders of churches to recover the centrality of the gospel and live lives of continual repentance and missional ministry. The autobiographical element of this book is really helpful, as well as Miller's "pacesetter" paradigm (developing leaders that set the pace for the rest of the congregation). Jack Miller is one of the key guys who influenced present day leaders like Tim Keller and Dick Kauffman. I'm looking forward to reading other books by Miller. Here's a few favorite quotes:

...as I study the lives of these two men [Spurgeon & Whitfield],I see an element in them that is often missing in me. This crucialelement is the way they related to the gospel. They came to itnot as strong, sufficient men, as its masters, but as men broken by itsteaching about man's sin and God's grace. What the gospel did for themwas to make them into 'weak-strong' men, men weak before God, deeplyconscious of their sinfulness, but also strong in the continued freshdiscovery of the pardoning grace of God as revealed in the cross.In anyplace [in your pastoral ministry] where you feel fear, plunge in....congregations and their leaders today are periously close to losing the elementary principles of faith that motivate qualitative and quantitative church growth.I am thinking of regular and thorough meditation on the promises ofGod, ongoing repentance based on the intense study of Scripture,continual personal and corporate prayer, daring gospel communicationand discipling, mobilizing every member's gifts for Christ's mission tothe world, and each congregation working to plant daughter churches.We need to use the pulpit as a battle station....we need only to establish two things to see peoplereleased from their bondage for service: one is the reality ofjustification by faith, and the other is the reality of Christ'spresent rule over our lives by faith.I believe that God's grace sought in humility will enable us torenounce our fears and the love of preeminence that often lies behindthem. He gives grace to the humble that includes a healthyself-fulfillment in Christ, a sanity of mind consisting largely of acertain good-humored carelessness about our honor and reputation.