Quotes

If parsons fiddle,
why mayn’t laymen dance?
WILLIAM COWPER

Why depend upon
the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit
when we have the methodology
to pick the locks on men’s hearts?
PHIL NEWTON

We pastors must examine our ministry—
the way we spend our time,
the way we use our talents—
by asking ourselves,
‘Is this service to the
cross of Christ or merely servitude
to the omnivorous desires of
North American discontented consumers?’
WILLIAM WILLIMON

True worship, like authentic preaching,
is foolishness to the world.
Most Christiansfeel that absurdity.
Some feel it to the point of abandoning it . . .
There are others who do not desert
the place of worship, but in staying do something worse:
they subvert it.
They turn it into a place of entertainment
that will refresh bored and tired consumers
and pump some zest into them . . .
The dangerous attendees are those who,
restless with the nonaction of worship,
subvert it into something
that will make something happen.
EUGENE PETERSON

Where Christ is spoken of in the word of the New Testament,
relevance is achieved.
The relevant is not where the present age
announces its claim before Christ,
but where the present age
stands before the claims of Christ
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

The Word of God,
properly understood,
never has to be made relevant.
Too much honest, misguided toil has been devoted to that.
The Word of God is already relevant.
It was relevant before we arrived on the scene.
The honest toil is called for as one seeks to understand it,
and by understanding it to apprehend its relevance.
All it asks is that instead of being adjusted to the modern situation,
or exploited to ends it never had in mind,
it be allowed to address,
at this time and in this place,
what is most deeply characteristic of human existence
PAUL SCHERER

We often persuade ourselves
that we ought to adopt or acquiesce
in the taste, the language, and the manners of the world
that we may not be unacceptable companions;
but when the world courts, adopts, and is delighted
with a minister of the Gospel,
that pastor gives decisive proof that he ceases to regard
the decorum of his station and the respectability of his character . . .
No, my brethren, the world does not run after
a holy and respectable pastor.
Let us not deceive ourselves.
To purchase the friendship and esteem of the world,
we must sacrifice a certain part of
the dignity and gravity of our ministry
MASSILLON

Worldly success is success judged
without reference to God or eternity.
Spiritual success is judged by God,
success from the perspective of eternity,
success without reference to the world’s evaluation . . .
The church has allowed the world to impose on Christian service
standards of success which are utterly non-biblical;
and when I talk of the church in this context
I mean American evangelicalism . . . the right kind of thinking
plus the right programming and motivating
plus the right battery of techniques
will change any failure into shining success . . .
I am honestly afraid that American evangelicalism
is guilty of idolatry.
It is bowing down,
if I may borrow a biting phrase from philosopher William James,
before the bitch goddess of success.
It is worshipping at the shrine of sanctified (or unsanctified) statistics . . .
As disciples of Jesus Christ,
too many of us are sinfully concerned about size—
the size of sanctuaries, the size of salaries, the size of Sunday Schools.
Too many of us are sinfully preoccupied with statistics
about budgets and buildings and buses and baptisms.
I say it bluntly: too many of us American evangelicals are worshipping
the bitch goddess of success
VERNON GROUNDS

One of our chief problems
as preachers
is finding enough inner security,
by God’s grace,
to do our work without being intimidated by
the society around us,
and without trying to court the favor of
people who are in power
GARDNER C. TAYLOR

Oh for radically Bible-saturated, God-centered,
Christ-exalting, self-sacrificing, mission-mobilizing,
soul-saving, culture-confronting pastors!
Let the chips fall where they will:
palm branches one day, persecution the next
JOHN PIPER