Pastoral Ministry Quotes

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.

~ Kingsley Opuwari Manuel

A prayer culture is fueled by experience not explanation. A passion to seek the Lord in prayer is more caught than taught.

~ Daniel Henderson

For every Gospel action, there is an opposite and devious demonic reaction. We see this in the book of Acts. It appears in church history. We experience it in our personal journeys.

~ Daniel Henderson

Our real problem is not the pervasiveness of the darkness but a failure of the light. Light always dispels darkness. The glorious light of the resurrection life of Jesus Christ is still sufficient and available to those who reject self-reliance and return to His plan for biblical leadership. This return can reignite the radiance of the Gospel in transforming power.

~ Daniel Henderson

We don't forget that we are Christians. We forget that we are human, and that one oversight alone can debilitate the potential of our future.

~ Wayne Cordeiro

[R]eal prayer is not an excuse for laziness but, in fact, is one of the most arduous engagements I know of in ministry. Prayer is not a replacement for hard work but, in most cases, empowerment for even more fruitful work.

~ Daniel Henderson

The prayer level of a church never rises any higher than the personal example and passion of the leaders. The quantity and quality of prayer in leadership meetings is the essential indicator of the amount of prayer that will eventually arise among the congregation.

~ Daniel Henderson

Father, help me focus on my strengths and trust others to fill the gaps of my weaknesses”Every leader knows the skills in which they excel. They also are aware of those tasks that they maintain a certain level of competence along with those duties they struggle in accomplishing. In my experience there are want to’s and the have to’s of leadership. The want to’s energize a leader and the have to’s zap the leader’s creativity and time. The quicker a leader can find those around them that will fill the gaps of their weaknesses, the more effective they will be in achieving God’s mission.

~ Gary Rohrmayer

Leaders are passionate learners. Leaders are always seeking ways to improve themselves by sharpening their skills. They fully embrace the fact that growing leaders lead growing organizations.

~ Gary Rohrmayer

Cultivating spiritual intimacy is essential for leaders to live a vibrant missional life.

~ Gary Rohrmayer

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 to reveal God's love. The great message that we have to carry, as ministers of God's Word and followers of Jesus, is that God loves us not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love and has chosen us to proclaim that love as the true source of all human life.

~ Henri J.m. Nouwen

You must read to lead. Reading feeds. It opens our souls to a long line of counselors.

~ Dave Harvey

My job is not to solve people's problems or make them happy, but to help them see the grace operating in their lives.

~ Eugene H. Peterson

An angry leader is a scared leader or a hurt leader or a frustrated leader but most of all they are a vulnerable leader.

~ Gary Rohrmayer

Great leaders are teachable leaders.

~ Gary Rohrmayer

Solitude is a chosen separation for refining your soul. Isolation is what you crave when you neglect the first.

~ Wayne Cordeiro

Somehow we American pastors, without really noticing what was happening, got our vocations redefined in the terms of American careerism. We quit thinking of the parish as a location for pastoral spirituality and started thinking of it as an opportunity for advancement. Tarshish, not Nineveh, was the destination. The moment we did that, we started thinking wrongly, for the vocation of pastor has to do with living out the implications of the word of God in community, not sailing off into the exotic seas of religion in search of fame and fortune.

~ Eugene H. Peterson

There is a long and well-documented tradition of wisdom in the Christian faith that any venture into leadership, whether by laity or clergy, is hazardous. it is necessary that there be leaders, but woe to those who become leaders.

~ Eugene H. Peterson

Deception is nowhere more common than in religion. And the persons most easily and damningly deceived are the leaders. Those who deceive others are first themselves deceived, for not many, I think, begin with evil intent. The devil, after all, is a spiritual being. His usual mode of temptation is not an obvious evil but to an apparent good. The commonest forms of devil-inspired worship do not take place furtively at black masses with decapitated cats but flourish under the bright lights of acclaim and glory, in a swirl of organ music.

~ Eugene H. Peterson

Pastors enter congregations vocationally in order to embrace the totality of human life in Jesus' name. We are convinced there is no detail, however unpromising, in people's lives in which Christ may not work his will. Pastors agree to stay with the people in their communities week in and week out, year in and year out, to proclaim and guide, encourage and instruct as God work his purposes (gloriously, it will eventually turn out) in the meandering and disturbingly inconstant lives of our congregations.This necessarily means taking seriously, and in faith, the dull routines, the empty boredom, and the unattractive responsibilities that make up much of most people's lives. It means witnessing to the transcendent in the fog and rain. It means living hopefully among people who from time to time get flickering glimpses of the Glory but then live through stretches, sometimes long ones, of unaccountable grayness. Most pastor work takes place in obscurity: deciphering grace in the shadows, searching out meaning in a difficult text, blowing on the embers of a hard-used life. This is hard work and not conspicuously glamorous.

~ Eugene H. Peterson

If evangelism is really going to be a value that your church embraces, the church will have to embrace the changes that will take place when evangelism is activated in the church.

~ Gary Rohrmayer

Vision is capturing God's assignment

~ Gary Rohrmayer

Apprenticeship assumes that knowing a trade not only comes by numbers and outlines but also by watching and inhabiting. Knowing is found in these forms, because teaching is. We teach not only by our words and assignments but also by the manner of our words and the ways we ourselves already embody the assignments we give.

~ Zack Eswine

If a church is good at making disciples it will be good at making leaders because in the end, a good spiritual formation plan will lead to an accelerated spiritual multiplication.

~ Gary Rohrmayer

As someone who has spent the last decade training young men and women for Christian service, I have been keen to help them see that the best kinds of ministry are, more often than not, long term and low key. I have tried to prepare them for a marathon, not a short, energetic sprint. In other words, to help them have a lifetime of sustainable sacrifice, rather than an energetic but brief ministry that quickly fades in exhaustion.

~ Christopher Ash

Missional leaders are comfortable in the own skin.

~ Gary Rohrmayer

When a leader is at their limit the last thing they want to hear is that they need to change even more. Maintaining good rhythms of rest, exercise and fun create more energy for a leader to be willing and open for change.

~ Gary Rohrmayer

No man is exempted from the subtle deception of doctrinal drift – the man of God expects this temptation.

~ Gary Rohrmayer

Our enemy attacks the conscience little by little seeking to wear us down and then wears out a leader's resolve to fight the good fight.

~ Gary Rohrmayer

There is nothing worse for a young convert than to be thrust into leadership without mentoring and ongoing coaching because the devil relishes these vulnerable souls.

~ Gary Rohrmayer