Best 280 quotes in «evangelism quotes» category

Reform suggests that you have already been solidified into a self. You were not. You were barely fifteen. You learn that the brain is not fully formed until you're twenty-five years old, and you wonder, then, what becomes of the mind commandeered before it has learned to follow paths of logic. You were soft as clay straight from the earth. You were reformed before you were formed.

Religion in art was a subtle business, best handled indirectly.

Sceptics are persuaded by a good reputation, for it is an unspoken statement of proof.

Secularism drew a radical distinction between public and private life, in which religion, in any traditional sense, was relegated to the private sphere with no hold over public life. There are many charms in secularism, in particular the freedom to believe what you will in private. But secularism also poses a public problem. There are those whose beliefs are so different from others’ beliefs that finding common ground in the public space is impossible. And then there are those for whom the very distinction between private and public is either meaningless or unacceptable. The complex contrivances of secularism have their charm, but not everyone is charmed.

Serving people with love and compassion is the best way to bring them to Christ

sexuality isn’t ancillary to Christianity, in the way some other cultural or political issues are. Marriage and sex point, the Bible says, to a picture of the gospel itself, the union of Christ and his church. This is why the Bible spends so much time, as some critics would put it, “obsessed” with sex. That’s why, historically, churches that liberalize on sex tend to liberalize themselves right out of Christianity itself.

Since much of American taxes prior to 1763 went to support the local clergy, one humorist suggested the opportunity to vote on that. If the minister was turned out, he could open a tavern and preach to his customers if he served them liquor.

Some evangelists spend too much time thinking and even planning about how to achieve visible results. This is an easy trap to fall into.

Some parents live more like reclusive monks than like first-century Christians who were famous for their love for and service within their cities, cities that in many cases were more overtly wicked than cities found in modern-day America.

Soul winning for Christ Jesus is a great business everyone must endeavor to start and keep it diligently

Strictly speaking, there’s no such thing as a “Christian” movie because movies, though often remarkable pieces of art full of symbolism, commentary and meaning, are not sentient beings. Even the animated ones are, strictly speaking, still things, inanimate objects lacking eternal souls, incapable of feeling emotions or making decisions.

That I have something to say is not a personal achievement. I have something to say because I am a Christian.

The author finds any freaking, and remarkably objective, way to estimate religion's influence on American society before the Civil War. The population closely aligned with evangelical sympathies was three or four times the size of the voting population in 1860

The author says those who often claim to be tolerant are tolerant of those who agree with them – which is no one's definition of tolerance.

The best ‘apologia’ (defense) of Jesus Following is your life ...not talking religion!” http://diigo.com/0odk2 ~ gfp '42©

The (Bible) story is much more powerful as Truth than as metaphor.

The Christian story, centered as it is on the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, is the only story for making sense of desire and loss.

The Church should spend less time trying to be "relevant", which can come across as disingenuous, and more time trying to align their hearts to the authentic gospel message.

The church speaks finally in that it prays for the world.

The culture around us knows what it means when they see a church in perpetual bluster and outrage. They know that we are scared.

The early Mormons were even less concerned about ministerial training. On several occasions, a man heard a discourse, submitted to baptism and confirmation, received a call to priesthood, and was sent on a mission - all on the same day. Canadian Samuel Hall, for instance, found a Latter-Day Saint tract on a Montreal street and traveled to Nauvoo to hear the teachings of Joseph Smith himself. On the day of his arrival, he heard a sermon by Smith, requested baptism, received ordination, and started on a mission - without even pausing to change his wet clothes.

The evangelistic ministry is a fight, not a frolic.

The Good News of the gospel of salvation must be declared to all nations.

The great crowds themselves are meaningless. The thing that counts is what happens in the hearts of the people. The evangelist sows the seed, and much inevitably falls upon stony ground and bears no fruit. But if only a few seeds flourish, the results are manifold.

The guy with Floyd's countenance should have a name like Isaiah or Abraham or Hezekiah. The name Floyd seems mundane for such an intriguing-looking man.

The mission that God has given us is a highly relational mission. Jesus said, "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you" John 20:21. Jesus came into this world, lived in obscurity for 30 years and then spent three years relationally investing in twelve men, whose charge was to do the same thing by relationally investing in others. This strategy has worked for 2000 years each of us has been touched by someone reaching out to and investing in us relationally, thus advancing the gospel and the mission of God.

There is a Cult of Western evangelists and self-righteous crusaders who are determined to dislodge non-Western nations and usurp their governments.

There is little taste for 'high culture' especially in Evangelicalism, where the tendency has long been toward translation - making things accessible to the largest number of people.

There is nothing in the world or the Church — except the church's disobedience — to render the evangelization of the world in this generation an impossibility.

The verbal tool of exploring mystery together is not confrontation or preaching but dialogue. We subject ourselves to the same questions we pose to others, and as we traverse them together, we may arrive at surprising conclusions we could never have reached when simply trying to defeat one another's logic. Our questions are open ended, granting the other person the freedom to respond or not to respond. The questions stick with us, even haunt us, long after we ask them, and we await insight together. The process is more important than an immediate decision.

The weekly worship service can be very effective in evangelism of non-Christians and in edification of Christians if it does not aim at either alone but is gospel centered and in the vernacular.

This is how you must be. You must become as evangelical about your promised outcome as he is about his. You must believe that you, and you alone, have the solution to your prospects problems. Even if they do not recognise those problems themselves.

To a Christian, the dastardly liberals are not so much villains as victims. It's not their fault they're possessed by demons. But if I felt a slight diminishing of hostility, I also saw any hope of mutual accommodation go up in a blast of sulfurous smoke...these days, much of what liberals really anguish about behind closed doors is how to find common ground with people of faith. And now I realized that for at least some people, common ground will never be possible because they don't object to specific ideas that can be reframed or adjusted. They object to Satan, whose bidding we are doing. They may not hate us - they may believe they love us - but they hate him, and they won't negotiate with him either. We want to persuade them, reason with them, listen to them, and accommodate them. They want to save us. It's not even the same playing field.

Religious laws, in all the major religious traditions, have both a letter and a spirit. As I understand the words and example of Jesus, the spirit of the law is all-important whereas the letter, while useful… becomes lifeless and deadly without it. In accord with this distinction a yearning to worship on wilderness ridges or beside rivers rather than in churches could legitimately be called evangelical… if your words or deeds harmonize with the example of Jesus, you are evangelical in spirit whether you claim to be or not. When the non-Christian Ambrose Bierce wrote, “War is the means by which Americans learn geography,” his words are aimed at the same antiwar end as “Blessed are the peacemakers.

Reputation is the panacea for those who lack confidence in their own decisions.

Sometimes, if you get too close to a subject you can miss what’s most important.

So you can't demand the broken to live as if they were whole. Discipline is not the issue; apply discipline and you'll make it worse. What is needed is healing.

Speaking from the heart is simple. Listening wholeheartedly, however, is much, much more difficult and most rare.

Spend your time designing the greatest reputation a man could possess.

Spiritual disciplines answer the shallow world.

Sure, if you saw your friend in hell, you would persuade him hard to come thence, if that would serve ; and why do you not now persuade him to prevent it? The charity of our ignorant forefathers may rise up in judgment against us, and condemn us. They would give all their estates almost, for so many masses, or pardons, to deliver the souls of their friends from a feigned purgatory, and we will not so much as importunately admonish and entreat them, to save theme from the certain flames of hell ; though this may be effectual to do them good, and the other will do none (403). Hadst thou rather he should burn for ever in hell, than thou shouldst lose his favour, or the maintenance thou hast from him? (408)

Tell your good news as an evangelist would. Do so with a passion driven by a need to help and solve problems that some people didn’t even know they had.

The author, at the time a Carter speechwriter in the 1980 campaign, showed visible distress at his boss's performance and was warned by a friend in the traveling press, lest he become the story.

The believer's job is to shine out Christ in their living and in their speaking.

The Bible and newspapers, to both Lincoln and Greeley, they represented equally compelling gospel.

The Christian disciple today has access to a world wide web of materials. There is plenty out there for a curious new Christian to discover. Even the maturing disciple can find groups, Bible studies, and prayer materials to help them grow for the mission of Christ. The Church remains stuck in the past, approaching the Internet as an unreal space filled with individuals lacking community. The Church is just now beginning to understand that there is much work to do if we are to engage in mission that is not limited to one worldly abode alone.

The church tastes true delight, and the world only samples a counterfeit. Pastors cannot help but pull off the mask of worldly thinking and harmful societal developments as they preach and teach and disciple.

The confidence felt, when dealing with genuine reputation, often outweighs the simplicity of price.

The devil can get you through your flesh. He knows the button to press on your flesh and have a way into your mind. The flesh becomes a transport medium for evil things if not killed for God. If Christ makes a home in your mind, satan can't get there.

The evangelist cannot bring conviction of sin, righteousness, or judgment; that is the Spirit’s work. They cannot convert anyone; that is the Spirit’s work.