The problem in our church world is that we’re so fixated on pastors and pulpits. The vast majority of people in the Christian world will never see a pulpit. If we don’t get unimpressed with the pulpit and pastors, then we’ll never see the reformation and harvest we all want. Whatever you affirm, you empower. Not afirming the ministry that goes on through the saints in their daily life, work, family, the mundane but necessary things, etc., has caused the repetitive strongholds that don’t get a breakthrough. We wonder why we don’t see a breakthrough in our churches, so we try harder and harder to preach better sermons and have better speakers because we hope that it’s the way to bring transformation. In this reformation, God is moving the pulpit from center stage to the back corner. The pulpit will still have a role. But our view of the pulpit will drastically change, and preaching in a church building behind the pulpit will become a smaller part of the transformation needed in the church, not the largest part. Now don’t get me wrong, most of my world is built around the pulpit. I love to preach and spend a lot of time preaching, teaching and training. But God is up to something different.
Pastors
A W Tozer
We Christians should know that our unchristian conduct cannot be kept in our own back yard. The evil birds of sin fly far and influence many to their everlasting loss. The sin committed in the privacy of the home will have its effect in the assembly of the saints. The minister, the deacon, the teacher who yields to temptation in secret becomes a carrier of moral disease whether he knows it or not. The church will be worse because one member sins. The polluted stream flows out and on, growing wider and darker as it affects more and more persons day after day and year after year.
Richard Wurmbrand
A pastor must be like a matchmaker who persuades a girl to marry someone else. He must be very careful the girl does not fall in love with him, the matchmaker. Likewise, the pastor must be a guide, enabling the believer to reach the Bridegroom. He must ignite a love for the Bridegroom in the hearts of the believers, so that after hearing one of his sermons, the congregation should not say, “How beautifully he has preached,” but “How wonderful Jesus is!” Remaining attached to the pastor and not passing through him to the Savior, about whom he preaches, can be a deadly danger for the believer.
Dave Harvey
A pastor is not called to be a template. We have to be careful not to create a culture where people feel obligated to mimic their pastors or any leader in the church. In the past, there has been some of that – certainly not explicitly taught by any pastors that I am aware of but has somehow been assumed.
Luc Niebergall
Anyone who is a seasoned leader knows that leadership can at times be lonely. Leaders regularly face times of being misunderstood, criticized, blamed, and judged. However, the cost is worth it. The reward is worth it. Peoples lives being transformed is worth it. Your job isn’t finished yet. Keep running, persevering, and pioneering. Keep reforming, inspiring, and building. God believes in the vision and dream He has placed within your heart.
Hayley Braun
I’m disturbed by some great men and women of God who we hear have fallen. It’s because we’ve put ministers on a pedestal that were meant for a King. We’ve put men in a place where a man can’t be a man; they have to be immortal or omniscient, omnipotent. They can’t have problems. If they do have a problem, they can’t tell anyone their problem because religion says if you have a problem, you can’t be part of us. Because if you’re dirty, you’ll make me dirty. But Jesus touched dirty people and made them clean.
Andrew Bonar
One of the gravest perils which besets the ministry is a restless scattering of energies over an amazing multiplicity of interests which leaves no margin of time and of strength for receptive and absorbing communion with God.
Mark Galli
The current state of our preaching is driven by an admirable desire to show our age the relevance of the gospel. But our recent attempts have inadvertently turned that gospel into mere good advice—about sex, about social ethics, about how to live successfully. This either offends or bores our culture. A renewed focus on the Cross, articulated in a culturally intelligent way, is the only way forward. Some will be scandalized by it, others will call it foolishness, and yet some will cling to it as salvation. But at least everyone will be talking about that which is truly First and Last.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
A prayerless church member is a hindrance. He is in the body like a rotting bone or a decayed tooth. Before long, since he does not contribute to the benefit of his brethren, he will become a danger and a sorrow to them. Neglect of private prayer is the locust which devours the strength of the church.
Ed Silvoso
Preaching the truth without love is like giving someone a kiss when you have bad breath. No matter how good the kiss, no one will come back for a second one. This is what happens when, in anger or disgust, we tell the lost how terrible and depraved they are. Even though it all may be true, our negative approach blocks and distorts the central message of the Bible—that God sent His Son not to condemn the world, but to save it (see John 3:17).