Quotes about Ministry

Go straight for souls, and go for the worst.

Solitude, community, and ministry are certainly not just for celibates! Celibates also have a hard time keeping up.

The only currency that will heal every culture is ceaseless love. To be a minister, we must walk like Jesus, talk like Jesus, and be like Jesus for a broken and dying world.

Ministry is being one of theses sent out ones, a labourer of love.

The congregation is the pastor's place for developing vocational holiness. It goes without saying that it is the place of ministry: we preach the word and administer the sacraments, we give pastoral care and administer the community life, we teach and we give spiritual direction. But it is also the place in which we develop virtue, learn to love, advance in hope — become what we preach.

If vocational holiness is to be anything more than a pious wish, pastors must dive to the ocean depths of prayer.

And my work is not to fix people. It is to lead people in the worship of God and to lead them in living a holy life.

I don't find pastors and professors, for the most part, very interested in matters of formation in holiness. They have higher profile things to tend to.

The vocation of pastor(s) has been replaced by the strategies of religious entrepreneurs with business plans.

The fear of making mistakes and not doing a particular ministry well has paralyzed many believers, and that is a tragedy. They fail to see that perfectionism is religion (form without power). Excellence is Kingdom. Saying yes to the King is the first step in discipleship. And being driven by love makes it impossible to remain stationary.

We need all five of them, working together. In short, apostles govern, prophets guide, evangelists gather, pastors guard, and teachers ground.

Once, while teaching a group of students about the importance of signs and wonders in the ministry of the gospel, a young man spoke up, saying, "I'll pursue signs and wonders when I know I have more of the character of Christ in me." As good as that may sound, it comes from a religious mind-set, not a heart that is abandoned to the gospel of Jesus Christ.