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Pastors Quotes

Browse 66 quotes about Pastors.

Pastors Quotes

“We must admit that simply knowing the contents of the Bible is not a sure route to spiritual growth. There is an aweful assumption in evangelical churches that if we can just get the Word of God into people's heads, then the Spirit of God will apply it to their hearts. That assumption is aweful, not because the Spirit never does what the assumption supposes, but because it excused pastors and leaders from the responsibility to tangle with people's lives. Many remain safely hidden behind pulpits, hopelessly out of touch with the struggles of their congregations, proclaiming the Scriptures with a pompous accuracy that touches no one. Pulpits should provide bridges, not barriers, to life-changing relationships.”

RelationshipsKnowledgeLearningBiblePastorsPulpits
Book:Inside Out
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“The prayer level of a church never rises any higher than the personal example and passion of the leaders. The quantity and quality of prayer in leadership meetings is the essential indicator of the amount of prayer that will eventually arise among the congregation.”

ChurchPrayerPrayer QuotesRevivalPastorsChurch LeadershipChurch LeadersPastoral MinistryPastoral CarePastoring
Book:Old Paths, New Power: Awakening Your Church through Prayer and the Ministry of the Word
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“Whatever you may know, you you cannot be truly efficient ministers if you are not "apt to teach." You know ministers who have mistaken their calling, and evidently have no gifts for it: make sure that none think the same of you. There are brethren in the ministry whose speech is intolerable; either they rouse you to wrath, or else they send you to sleep. No chloral can ever equal some discourses in sleep-giving properties; no human being, unless gifted with infinite patience, could long endure to listen to them, and nature does well to give the victim deliverance through sleep. I heard one say the other day that a certain preacher had no more gifts for the ministry than an oyster, and in my own judgment this was a slander on the oyster, for that worthy bivalve shows great discretion in his openings, and knows when to close. If some men were sentenced to hear their own sermons, it would be a righteous judgement upon them, and they would soon cry out with Cain, "My punishment is greater than I can bear." Let us not fall under the same condemnation.”

MinistersPreachingOystersThe BiblePastorsPreachers
Author:Charles H. Spurgeon
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“But the fact is that the gospel demands everything of all of us. If someone thinks the gospel has slotted into their life quite easily, without causing any major adjustments to their lifestyle or aspirations, it is likely that they have not really started following Jesus at all.”

ChristianityPastorsGays And Lesbians
Book:Is God Anti-gay?: And Other Questions About Homosexuality, the Bible, and Same-Sex Attraction
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“Finally, the work of the minister tended to be judged by his success in a single area - the saving of souls in measurable numbers. The local minister was judged either by his charismatic powers or by his ability to prepare his congregation for the preaching of some itinerant ministerial charmer who would really awaken its members. The 'star' system prevailed in religion before it reached the theater. As the evangelical impulse became more widespread and more dominant, the selection and training of ministers was increasingly shaped by the revivalist criterion of ministerial merit. The Puritan ideal of the minister as an intellectual and educational leader was steadily weakened in the face of the evangelical ideal of the minister as a popular crusader and exhorter. Theological education itself became more instrumental. Simple dogmatic formulations were considered sufficient. In considerable measure the churches withdrew from intellectual encounters with the secular world, gave up the idea that religion is a part of the whole life of intellectual experience, and often abandoned the field of rational studies on the assumption that they were the natural province of science alone. By 1853 an outstanding clergyman complained that there was 'an impression, somewhat general, that an intellectual clergyman is deficient in piety, and that an eminently pious minister is deficient in intellect.”

ChurchChristianityMinistryEvangelismPastorsAnti IntellectualismEvangelicalismGreat AwakeningRevivalism
Book:Anti-Intellectualism in American Life
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“If there be any feeding of Christ, any drop of heavenly dew, or any spark of God's good Spirit within you, stir it up; be careful to build and edify, first yourselves, and then your flocks in this most holy faith. I say, first yourselves; for he who will set the hearts of other men on fire with the love of Christ, must himself burn with love. It is want of faith in ourselves, my brethren, which makes us retchless (careless) in building others. We forsake the Lord's inheritance, and feed it not. What is the reason of this? Our own desires are settled where they should not be. We ourselves are like those women who have a longing to eat coals, and lime, and filth: we are fed, some with honour, some with ease, some with wealth: the gospel waxeth loathsome and unpleasant in our taste: how should we then have a care to feed others with that which we cannot fancy ourselves? If faith wax cold and slender in the heart of the prophet, it will soon perish from the ears of the people. (Sermon on part of St Jude's Epistle, p. 552)”

PastorsSetting An ExamplePreachers
Author:Richard Hooker
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“Too many congregations look to their pastors for simple answers to problems that their pastors see as anything but simple. And too many pastors don't trust their congregations enough to say, "It's not that simple from my point of view and here’s why.”

PastorsCongregations
Book:A Letter to My Congregation: An Evangelical Pastor's Path to Embracing People Who Are Gay, Lesbian and Transgender in the Company of Jesus
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“There comes a time in your life when you can no longer put off choosing. You have to choose one path or the other. You can live safe and be protected by people just like you, or you can stand up and be a leader for what is right. Always, remember this: People never remember the crowd; they remember the one person that had the courage to say and do what no one would do.”

CharacterHelpingFriendshipLeadershipCourageIntegrityActivistCollaborationAlliesWarriorsLawyersAssistingPastorsSpiritual WarriorsNamiPastoral Partners
Author:Shannon L. Alder
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