Quotes from Calvin Miller

Bless your critics for their honesty. They do not criticize you to be a blessing to you, but the end product may be the same.

The best of sermons have never been a belch of information or piety.

Preachers, however eloquent they are, are rarely heard as readily as pastors. After all, shepherds are sheep lovers, and the sheep are dependent upon their shepherds, who love them even before they listen.

Just because the pastors have preached hundreds of sermons in one place does not give them the liberty of skipping the work of audience analysis for even one single Sunday.

Tutored by secularists, they want God on their own terms, and prefer a worship service in which there's a lot of smiling.

The third question, "What do they know about God?" has for its answer, "Pretty much nothing.

To say, "This morning I want to preach to you a doctrinal sermon," is to hear the loud report of a thousand minds clicking off at one time.

New converts keep old converts alive and reminiscent of their own wonderful moments of conversion.

Doctrines are the high-voltage center of the faith.

Exciting sermons were generally seen as heretical, or at least non-biblical.

People want to be impacted by "the great beyond of the Holy Spirit.

Still, most people need more information on how to become conformed to the image of Christ than they do on how to be converted.

All of this talking about being image-driven was not a new idea. Jesus himself told lots of stories, and his sermons were full of images—image-driven, to be precise.

Most people would rather listen to sermons than act on them.

People come to church with their hearts on their sleeves. They are longing to be told that God loves them.9 They want to be told that they are special to God and the very fact that he loves them means they have significance.

The human spirit is either a treasure chest or a junk box. We were designed to bear the power of God, but the debaucheries of our hearts can quickly fill the space intended for God.

Young minister of God, keep that little sparkle in your eyes, and then write down how your call came to you, and when you've written it down in fire, defend it that way. When your defense is expressed in the hottest flame you can engender, only then will your definition be strong enough to last a lifetime.

I must confess I never rebuke a child for being noisy in church, for I suffer the distinct impression that if I were more interesting, he would be less rowdy.

Screaming our affirmations can make us sound like we're in doubt

She cautioned her prosperous friends to live united to God's will. She also stressed that there is goodness in material possessions, for God wishes us to live in the joy of his gifts. But she also cautioned us that we must not love these gifts in such a way that, instead of our possessing them, they begin to possess us.

Preachers must always be thinking of the application all the time they are dispensing information.

Great worship and great sermons contain a wonderful impending, a sense of "watch out, here it comes.

Still nobody knows better than those who preach that preaching is an art in which a studied, professional sinner tells the less studied sinners how they ought to believe, behave, and serve.

In a religion where logic alone rules, there is no power.