Quotes about Ministry

Faithful servants never retire. You can retire from your career, but you will never retire from serving God.

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.

God intentionally allows you to go through painful experiences to equip you for ministry to others.

Mr. Leonard thought rightly that the highest work to which any man could be called was a life of service to his fellows; but he made the mistake of supposing the field of service much narrower than it is—of failing to see that a man may minister to the needs of humanity in many different but equally effective ways.

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.

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.

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

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).

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.