Best 96 quotes in «pastor quotes» category

I'm a reverend and a pastor. A pastor of the church. I go by usually pastor.

I am a pastor, and I teach and preach the Bible to my congregation every week. But the Bible is not a manufacturer's handbook. Neither is it a science textbook nor a guidebook for public policy.

If people don't know their pastor, it's easy to put the pastor on a pedestal and depersonalize him or her. It's also easy for pastors, who don't know their congregations, simply to classify congregants as saved or unsaved, involved or not involved, tithers or non-tithers.

I actually think one of most profoundly and deep pastoral moments between a pastor and his church is what happens between them before God in the context of preaching.

I struggle with trying to be a good pastor of a large church.

I'm from the church, my dad was a pastor's kid.

I'm not looking for peace on earth, though, through a political solution. I'm a pastor.

Inconsistency on the part of pastors and the faithful between what they say and what they do, between word and manner of life, is undermining the church's credibility.

Instead of applauding sex addict pastors, we need to tell them to either preach the Gospel with their lives or get out from behind that pulpit!

I was a full-time pastor and a part-time follower of Christ.

I teach metaphysics and pastor a church.

It is time for pastors, priests and all true believers to come out of the closet and stand for truth against the flood of evil.

My dad's a pastor and a seminary professor, my mom, she has such great faith.

I'm not a pastor; I've never been on staff at a church.

She squinted up at him. "But I haven't always made good decisions." Pastor Harris smiled. "All that shows is that you're human.

My experience as a pastor is lots of people have really toxic, dangerous, psychologically devastating images of God in their head, images of a God who's not good.

Pastors are highly susceptible to the sin of sloth.

Persecution shows who is a hireling, and who a true pastor.

Preaching is the pastor's main work, and preaching is heart work, not just mental work.

Many pastors fail to see God's vision fulfilled because they never have a strategy for fulfilling that vision.

Pastors need to find their place in the community of believers by spending time with God.

A good shepherd always feeds his sheep first, even when he himself is hungry.

The vocation of pastor has been replaced by the strategies of religious entrepreneurs with business plans.

We have our own language. Christianese... We don't say 'He's out of his mind,' no, we say 'That's our youth pastor.

When the family is destroyed, society eventually disintegrates.

A good pastor knows how to trust people and how to give them authority to fulfill all kinds of tasks. He tries to make himself unnoticed and unnecessary. Don’t be indispensable!

A good shepherd feeds his sheep first, even when he himself is hungry.

The experienced pastor will recognize to which situation humor belongs and to which belongs sobriety.

We don't get to decide who God is.

Well, these tattoos aren't really rebellion. These tattoos are all tattoos I've had since I have been a pastor.

When it's hard and you are doubtful, give more.

A godly pastor thinks first of others, before he thinks of himself.

A good shepherd always gives people freedom to choose; he doesn’t lay down conditions or use any kind of pretext to restrict people. This shepherd resembles Jesus and people will not even want to leave him.

A good shepherd encourages and inspires each one that works alongside him.

A good shepherd has a positive influence on his people through "inward work", i.e. working on them from the inside.

A good shepherd rejoices when he sees those under him progressing.

A good coach can be a caring parent, a wise teacher, an exemplary pastor, a passionate friend or a devoted mentor. Keep in touch with all of them especially at the time they are needed.

A mere motivator sees potentials in people and tells them to take actions. A true leader sees the same potentials in the same people and influences them to optimize them under his God-lead inspirations.

A pastor without anointing is just a religious professor

Anytime you feel like you don't have any work to do, just look around. Look for what God had started doing and ask for his permission to assist him in doing it.

A piece of paper doesn't make you a pastor any more than making predictions makes you a prophet.

A preacher shouldn't preach just to make you feel good. Then it's about the money not about the teach. He should preach the truth because the truth shall set you free.

A real pastor — a good shepherd — is always concerned about the personal development of every individual person in his church.

A real pastor will always show respect for people.

A true pastor is always in tune with the hearts of his people.

A true pastor is always open to talk through and discuss things and to make joint decisions.

Blessed is he who turned many souls from sin.

(from chapter 29, "Write in a Book What You See') "The phrase that gave us focus was 'a long obedience in the same direction.' (Nietzsche) ...Early on in my reading I came upon this sentence: 'The essential thing in heaven and earth is...that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run something that has made life worth living.' That struck me as a text I could live with. I saw myself assigned to give witness to the sheer liveability of the Christian life that everything in scripture and Jesus was here to be lived. In the mess of work and sin, of families and neighborhoods, my task was to pray and give direction and encourage that lived quality of the gospel - patiently, locally, and personally. Patiently: I would stay with those people; there are no quick or easy ways to do this. Locally: I would embrace the conditions of this place - economics, weather, culture, schools, whatever - so that there would be nothing abstract or piously idealized about what I was doing. Personally: I would know them, know their names, know their homes, know their families, know their work - but I would not pry. I would not treat them as a cause or a project. I would treat them with dignity. Preaching, of course, is part of it, teaching is part of it, administering a congregation as a community of faith is part of it. But the overall context of my particular assignment in the pastoral vocation, as much as I am able to do it, is to see to it that these men and women in my congregation become aware of the possibilities and the promise of living out in personal and local detail what is involved in following Jesus, and be companion to them as we do it together.

Don't just cry over your 10 or 20 member church. Sometimes, God gives you your future first. The ones you call little carry in them every possibility you desire of the future. God would send you leaders but they may come as weak men and women first. Don't be so 'gift' conscious that you fail to realize that certain things are results of growth.

(from chapter 24, "Heather-scented Theology") "...I was more than ever what I had been becoming for a long time - a contemplative pastor. In these early years when I was becoming a pastor, I needed a pastor. Some deep and cultivated pastoral instinct in Ian responded: he became my pastor without making me a project, without giving me advice, without smothering me with his concerns... I learned, without being aware that I was learning of the immense freedom that comes in pastoral relationships that are structured by prayer and ritual and let everything else happen more or less spontaneously. The competitiveness didn't exactly leave me, but it developed a root system that didn't depend on artificial stimulants or chemical additives - like 'start another building campaign.