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I do not consecrate myself to be a missionary or a preacher. I consecrate myself to God to do His will where I am, be it in school, office, or kitchen, or wherever He may, in His wisdom, send me.
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ministry
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Watchman Nee |
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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 but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life in a dying heart. Those who are not afraid to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears in grief, and to let a sigh of distress arise straight from the heart, can break through paralyzing boundaries and witness the birth of a new fellowship, the fellowship of the broken.
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compassion
empathy
gratitude
ministry
pain
priesthood-of-all-believers
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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This leaves us with the urgent question: How can we be or become a caring community, a community of people not trying to cover the pain or to avoid it by sophisticated bypasses, but rather share it as the source of healing and new life? It is important to realize that you cannot get a Ph.D. in caring, that caring cannot be delegated by specialists, and that therefore nobody can be excused from caring. Still, in a society like ours, we have a strong tendency to refer to specialists. When someone does not feel well, we quickly think, 'Where can we find a doctor?' When someone is confused, we easily advise him to go to a counselor. And when someone is dying, we quickly call a priest. Even when someone wants to pray we wonder if there is a minister around.
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church
ministry
priesthood-of-all-believers
specialization
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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What right have such men to represent Christianity--as if it were an institution for getting up idiots genteelly?
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mediocrity
ministry
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George Eliot |
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Every true work is not done to the poor. Every true work is done to Me.
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ministry
social-gospel
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Watchman Nee |
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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.
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christianity
clergy
god-s-love
jesus
ministry
pastoral-ministry
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Henri J.M. Nouwen |
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"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"."
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ministry
popularity
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George Eliot |
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God is immutable--He never changes! His ministry to you is complete, on target, and constant!
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change
christian
constant
faith
god
love
ministry
never
target
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Elizabeth George |
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Finally, the work of the minister tended to be judged by his success in a single area - the saving of souls in measurable numbers. The local minister was judged either by his charismatic powers or by his ability to prepare his congregation for the preaching of some itinerant ministerial charmer who would really awaken its members. The 'star' system prevailed in religion before it reached the theater. As the evangelical impulse became more widespread and more dominant, the selection and training of ministers was increasingly shaped by the revivalist criterion of ministerial merit. The Puritan ideal of the minister as an intellectual and educational leader was steadily weakened in the face of the evangelical ideal of the minister as a popular crusader and exhorter. Theological education itself became more instrumental. Simple dogmatic formulations were considered sufficient. In considerable measure the churches withdrew from intellectual encounters with the secular world, gave up the idea that religion is a part of the whole life of intellectual experience, and often abandoned the field of rational studies on the assumption that they were the natural province of science alone. By 1853 an outstanding clergyman complained that there was 'an impression, somewhat general, that an intellectual clergyman is deficient in piety, and that an eminently pious minister is deficient in intellect.
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christianity
church
evangelicalism
evangelism
great-awakening
ministry
pastors
revivalism
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Richard Hofstadter |
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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 arched rafters, beneath the tall central window of Jesus taking off into the sky with a pack of pastel apostles for a launching pad, the timbre is doubled, richer, with a rounded sorrowful something Rabbit hadn't noticed hitherto, gathering and pressing the straggle of guests into a congregation, subduing any fear that this ceremony might be a farce. Laugh at ministers all you want, they have the words we need to hear, the ones the dead have spoken.
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acoustics
church
ministry
priestcraft
rabbit-angstrom
stained-glass-window
wedding
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John Updike |
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God does not save us to make us forget our heritage, but to complete it.
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culture
ministry
personality
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Beth Moore |
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We think in terms of apostolic journeys. God dares to put His greatest ambassadors in chains.
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limitation
ministry
sovereignty-of-god
weakness
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Watchman Nee |
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The author reveals a cultural change that took place when clergy were paid based on a tax on the land's value rather than what it produced. This meant that, while parishioners could suffer through a terrible year, clergy would always have a comfortable one.
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detachment
ministry
suffering
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Bill Bryson |
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You must teach me the way you thrust your worries aside and turn to practical matters.
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discipleship
ministry
thought-life
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Frank Herbert |
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Humility is the earmark of God's genuine servant.
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graciousness
ministry
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Beth Moore |
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If it was bliss to be alive, to hunt was rapture.
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distraction
focus
job
ministry
vocation
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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He was driven to use the prerogatives of his profession, to act the parson.
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authenticity
humility
ministry
openness
pride
religiousness
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E.M. Forster |
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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.
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ministry
pastoral-care
sin
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Thomas C. Oden |
c004106
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Every experienced pastor knows that what the penitent heart says about itself is much more consequential than well-made truthful sentences that shout from the outside of the inner voice of conscience. No element of confession is more crucial than the discipline of listening. The attentive listener is a chosen agent of divine reconciliation. When the moment for keen listening is offered, take it as an inestimable gift.
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listening
ministry
pastoral-care
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Thomas C. Oden |
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You don't need a prophet to tell you to eat.
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discipleship
ministry
provision
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Geraldine Brooks |
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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 God's holiness.
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ministry
pastoral-care
repentance
sin
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Thomas C. Oden |
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People will love him (Theodore Roosevelt) for the enemies he has made.
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ministry
pacifism
spiritual-warfare
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Doris Kearns Goodwin |
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The author writes that key FDR aide Harry Hopkins was in such poor health near the end of his boss's second term that one observer said he didn't know how Hopkins could possibly report to the president. But, at the onset of war and genuine national emergency, Hopkins was animated with a new sense of purpose.
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humility
ministry
mission
self-forgetfulness
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Doris Kearns Goodwin |
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Curiosity - if not desire, if not plain kindness - might have led him to greater zeal.
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ministry
openness
passion
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Geraldine Brooks |
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the heart of a prophet is not his own to bestow.
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ministry
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Geraldine Brooks |
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One Cardinal entered his cathedral for the first time at his funeral.
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ministry
worldliness
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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The author says one patrician English leader saw his relationship with the populace thusly: He wasn't responsible TO them. He was responsible FOR them. He was responsible for their care.
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dominion
idolatry
leadership
ministry
paternalism
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Barbara W. Tuchman |
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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 of modernity it has volunteered itself right out of existence. Demystification has dwindled into desacralization. The escape from routinization has become a convenient cover for the demise of repentance. The postmodern pastor is trying to learn anew to listen to the deeper range of feelings of others, without forgetfulness of the Word of God.
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church
confession
ministry
pastoral-care
sin
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Thomas C. Oden |