Quotes About Ministry

Only after badgering ministry officials for eight years was he allowed to look at the Commission of Inquiry testimony. He has published an annotated collection of it as a book.

In short, apostolic movement involves a radical community of disciples, centered on the lordship of Jesus, empowered by the Spirit, built squarely on a fivefold ministry, organized around mission where everyone (not just professionals) is considered an empowered agent, and tends to be decentralized in organizational structure.

Apostolic ministry is not just about founding new churches and movements; it is as much about the renewal of existing organizations, that is, helping the church retain its primal movemental nature and stay vibrant. And so it has ongoing relevance for established churches as well.

Whether we choose it or not, almost all expressions of church in the West are implicitly vulnerable to nondiscipleship, professionalized ministry, spiritual passivity, and consumerism. The problem is rooted in the profoundly nonmissional assumptions of the system itself.

He says we are not forsaken. For while I wonder for what we live and struggle and die, for while I wonder what keeps us living and struggling, men are sent to minister to the blind ... Who gives, at this one hour, a friend to make darkness light before me?

It is unscriptural to pray for the sick if one is not prepared also to cast out demons. Jesus did not separate one from the other.

We know of the tensions between the first Church in Jerusalem and Churches in which Paul of Tarsus became the prominent teacher .. The Jerusalem Church remained closer to the parent Judaism than other Churches did, that secondary grouping of other Churches revered the ministry and then the memory of Paul, who suffered the potential handicap of never having met the lord in his public ministry unlike his contemporaries in the Jerusalem leadership who included relatives of the lord.

The task of pastoral ministry, above all else, is to arrange contingencies for an encounter with the divine.

To make a start, it should give away all its property to those in need. The clergy must live solely on the free-will offerings of their congregations, or possibly engage in some secular calling. The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving.

It is a strange fact that Christians and even ministers frequently consider their work so important and urgent that they allow nothing to disturb them. They think they are doing God a service in this, but actually they are disdaining God's "crooked yet straight path" (Gottfried Arnold). They do not want a life that is crooked and balked.

2 Corinthians 5:20: So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

The distinction between objective and personal thinking must truly first be learned. Many people never learn this (look at our colleagues in the ministry! among others).

The church is not a campus but a community. Pastors are not CEOs; they are shepherds.

What if every church in America had a ministry to stand against modern slavery?

In trying to be strong for them, I had cheated them out of opportunities to strengthen me. Guilt overwhelmed me, because I could-at last-see their gifts to me. The shame flowed all over me, and I began to cry. This is their ministry, I thought, and I've been spoiling it. I felt such intense shame over not letting them help. When I finally did open up, I witnessed a drastic

On subsequent visits I expanded further on the life and ministry of Jesus

The goal in Pietism was the service of God in ministry to the world

The Ministry places a rather higher value on my life than yours, I'm afraid.

Here's how to determine God's will for your life: Go wherever your gifts will be exploited the most.

Other people are going to find healing in your wounds. Your greatest life messages and your most effective ministry will come out of your deepest hurts.

Evangelism is not an option for the Christian life.

When I consider my ministry, I think of the world. Anything less than that would not be worthy of Christ, nor of his will for my life.

We must have a strong inner life of fellowship and intimacy with Jesus if we are going to have a strong outer life of ministry

I will never do anything in my entire life except preach the Gospel.