Dec 16
Andrew J. NicewanderQuote of the Week Pastoral, Pastoring, Preaching, Quotes, the Country, Tim Keller
“Young pastors should not turn up their noses at such places, where they may learn the full spectrum of ministry tasks and skills as they will not in a large church. Nor should they go to small communities looking at them merely as stepping stones in a career. Why not? Your early ministry experience will only prepare you for ‘bigger things,’ if you don’t aspire for anything bigger than investment in the lives of the people around you. Wherever you serve, put your roots down, become a member of the community and do your ministry with all your heart and might. If God opens the door to go somewhere else, fine and good. But don’t go to such places looking at them only as training grounds for ‘real ministry.’”
- Tim Keller, on “The Country Parson”
Sep 08
Andrew J. NicewanderQuote of the Week, Quotes Carl Trueman, Celebrity, Doctrine, Fame, Quotes, Reformation, Theology
“Finally, I worry that a movement built on megachurches, megaconferences, and megaleaders, does the church a disservice in one very important way that is often missed amid all the pizzazz and excitement: it creates the idea that church life is always going to be big, loud, and exhilarating and thus gives church members and ministerial candidates unrealistic expectations of the normal Christian life. In the real world, many, perhaps most, of us worship and work in churches of 100 people or less; life is not loud and exciting; big things do not happen every Sunday; budgets are incredibly tight and barely provide enough for a pastor’s modest salary; each Lord’s Day we go through the same routines of worship services, of hearing the gospel proclaimed, of taking the Lord’s Supper, of teaching Sunday School; perhaps several times a year we do leaflet drops in the neighbourhood with very few results; at Christmas time we carol sing in the high street and hand out invitations to church and maybe two or three people actually come along as a result; but no matter — we keep going, giving, and praying as we can; we try to be faithful in the little entrusted to us. It’s boring, it’s routine, and it’s the same, year in, year out. Therefore, in a world where excitement, celebrity, and cultural power are the ideal, it is tempting amidst the circumstances of ordinary church life to forget that this, the routine of the ordinary, the boring, the plodding, is actually the norm for church life and has been so throughout most places for most of the history of the church; that mega-whatevers are the exception, not the rule; and that the church has survived throughout the ages not just – or even primarily – because of the high profile firework displays of the great and the good, but because of the day to day faithfulness of the mundane, anonymous, non-descript people who constitute most of the church, and who do the grunt work and the tedious jobs that need to be done [emphasis added]. History does not generally record their names; but the likelihood is that you worship in a church which owes everything, humanly speaking, to such people.”
- Carl Trueman
Sep 01
Andrew J. NicewanderQuote of the Week, Quotes Agnosticism, Belief, God, Philosophy, Quotes, Science, Theology
“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about the conquer the highest peak. As he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
- Dr. Robert Jastrow (from “God and the Astronomers“, quoted from Grace and Truth to You)
Oct 20
Andrew J. NicewanderQuotes Christian Work, God's Sovereignty, Oswald Chambers, Quotes
“It is impossible to get exhausted in work for God. We get exhausted because we try to do God’s work in our own way.”
-Oswald Chambers
Sep 04
Andrew J. NicewanderQuote of the Week, Quotes Evangelism, Hudson Taylor, Missions, Patience, Quotes
“There are three indispensable requirements for a missionary: 1. Patience 2. Patience 3. Patience.”
- Hudson Taylor
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