If you will study the history of Christ’s ministry from Baptism to Ascension, you will discover that it is mostly made up of little words, little deeds, little prayers, little sympathies, adding themselves together in...

My call to the ministry was not a miraculous or supernatural something. On the contrary it was an inner urge calling me to serve humanity.

Cause every task of your day to be a sacred ministry to the Lord. however mundane your duties, for you they are a sacrament.

Fred dislikes the idea going into the ministry partly because he doesn’t like “feeling obligated to look serious”, and he centers his doubts on “what people expect of a clergyman”.

That’s the strangest thing about this life, about being in the ministry. People change the subject when they see you coming. And then sometimes those very same people come into your study and tell you...

I would never want to reach out someday with a soft, uncallused hand-a hand never dirtied by serving-and shake the nail-pierced hand of Jesus.

As missional leaders we need to see God as:Bigger than the problems we endure.Bigger than the pressures we experience.Bigger than the people who criticize us.Bigger than the pain we suffer.Bigger than the praise we receive.Bigger...

We are all priests before God, there is no such distinction as ‘secular or sacred.’ In fact, the opposite of sacred is not secular; the opposite of sacred is profane. In short, no follower of...

Walden is the report of a man torn by two powerful and opposing drives – the desire to enjoy the world and the urge to set the world straight.

When religion becomes so involved in a future good “over yonder” that it forgets the present evils over here it is as dry as dust religion and needs to be condemned.

Freedom in the Gospel does not mean license. It means opportunity.

what secular avocation on earth was there for a young man (whose friends could not get him an ‘appointment’) which was at once gentlemanly, lucrative, and to be followed without special knowledge?

Adoption is the most intentional process on Earth.

Let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called and his work will be as sacred as the work of the ministry. It is not what a man does that determines whether his...

Like the hub of a wheel, the church’s corporate life is an extension of the good news that God was in Christ reconciling the whole world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.

I am the equipper, not the doer.” If not, there were going to be immense roadblocks to effectively mobilizing people for ministry.

If you want your ministry to have ‘it’, more important than anything else we’ve discussed, you must have ‘it’. When it has filtered through your heart – the rare combination of passion, integrity, focus, faith,...

No life is messier than one in ministry

Protestants at one time were confident that their free form of confession was a vast improvement upon Catholic private confession to a priest because it is voluntary, demystified, and not routinized. But amid the acids...

I am called to minister to people and inspire them to do more not to advertise them and have them swell up with pride.

The voice welling up out of this little man is terrific, Harry had noticed it at the house, but here, in the nearly empty church, echoing off the walnut knobs and memorial plaques and high...

Let us practice the fine art of making every work a priestly ministration. Let us believe that God is in all our simple deeds and learn to find Him there.

Prayer is a mighty ministry that any believer can have—anywhere, anytime, and in any circumstance.

To get leaders to become stakeholders in ministry and to understand the DNA of your church, you must invest in them, equip them, and raise the bar of accountability.

People will love him (Theodore Roosevelt) for the enemies he has made.

It is not loving to impose our own grid onto others. We need to understand their situation and their needs accurately, and this comes from listening to them, not coming in with our own assumptions.

One trains the eye of confession most closely on what is hurting. If sin is present it will be aching. Confession begins where the raw anguish of conscience is rubbing against the primordial awareness of...

The Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. That is the way Jesus came...

There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared. It is the great venture. It can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees...

To do the work of others is slavery. To do the work of God is true liberation.

Like a fountain of refreshing water in the dusty, dry desert streets, a heart God fills with His love ministers life and health.

We forget that God’s primary goal ia not changing our situations or relationships so that we can be happy, but changing us through our situations and relationships so that we will be holy.

Her characters tend to err when they reject the grubby and complex circumstances of everyday life for abstract and radical notions. They thrive when they work within the rooted spot, the concrete habit, the particular...

Shoddy work is not just shoddy work. It’s a failure of love.

The deeper irony is that the evidence of sin that are always found in and around the body of Christ may become indirect intimations of its holiness. It could not be a holy church if...

Those who really can receive bread from a stranger and smile in gratitude, can feed many without even realizing it. Those who can sit in silence with their fellow man not knowing what to say...

The essence of a mature human being in religious terms is the ability to see, to be aware of others’ suffering and to be touched by it.

Always have a book to read, instead of indulging in vain conversation. Strive to learn English….Remember this, that you cannot commit some loved sin in private, and perform the work of the ministry in public,...

God is immutable—He never changes! His ministry to you is complete, on target, and constant!

Personal ministry is not about always knowing what to say. It is not about fixing everything in sight that is broken. Personal ministry is about connecting people with Christ so that they are able to...

What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use — men of prayer, men mighty in prayer....

Ministry’s not an option for a Christian; it’s a privilege.

The confessor can nullify the exquisitely seasonable moment of confession by talking instead of listening. When he sees pedagogy and advice as more important than simple listening, he diverts the stream of confession.

If the world is to go beyond a curiosity well-guarded by cynicism in either academic tweeds or vulgar rap, YOUR POWER MUST BE EVIDENT IN MEETING MATERIAL NEEDS. And it can’t just happen once. The...

Christian life is not a life divided between times for action and times for contemplation. No. Real social action is a way of contemplation, and real contemplation is the core of social action.

Jesus lived in occupied territory, in poverty and misery, and his stories and preaching are all about food, land, liberation from bondage and servitude and get. He preached about providing for those who lacked the...

Jesus is more interested in your heart than your ministry.

Harmony is produced in ministry when everyone seeks to be a servant.

Harboring bitterness against people is actually confessing their sin to myself, over and over again. Anger is akin to confessing their sin to God, dissatisfied that he hasn’t done something and placing myself in his...

God’s plan is to make much of the man, far more of him than of anything else. Men are God’s method. The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men.