“Before anything that is truly of God can be born, your own preferences have to die. Your desire to lead a contemporary / emerging / casual / formal / whatever church has to be laid on the altar and sacrificed in order to receive Christ’s call and mission to this community. That is what Jesus meant when he said to his disciples in Luke 9:23, ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’ Are you willing to die to your preferences so the people in your community can be reached with the gospel? Is your church willing to move out of its Christian subculture and relate to its community? Is it possible that you and your church are missing out on some of the blessings of the gospel because you have been unwilling to die to yourself and your preferences?”

Ed Stetzer, from his book Breaking the Missional Code