Quotes about Congregation

As a preacher, my charge is to proclaim the message of the Scriptures. To help the people in my congregation become a people of the book. I love getting to do this.

Andrew Bonar wrote in his diary on December 13, 1880, "I long more and more to be filled with the Spirit, and to see my congregation moved and melted under the Word, as in great revival times, 'the place shaken where they are assembled together,' because the Lord has come in power.

If a pastor's activity in the church is merely a once-a-week attempt to tow the congregation's cargo ship a little closer to eternity, the whole thing comes to nothing. A human life, unlike a cargo ship, cannot lie in the same place until the next Sunday.

It is one thing for a minister to be an advocate and supporter of missions: it is another and very different thing for him to understand that they are the chief end of the Church, and therefore the chief end for which his congregation exists. It is only when this truth masters him in its spiritual power, that he will be able to give the subject of missions its true place in his ministry.

Thy breath in the congregation, thy word in the church, breathes communion and consolation here, and consummation hereafter;

It is no small matter to stand up in the face of a congregation and deliver a message of salvation or damnation as from the living God in the name of our Redeemer.

A good church is a Bible-centered church. Nothing is as important as this--not a large congregation, a witty pastor, or tangible experiences of the Holy Spirit.

Finney preached and sometimes the whole congregation would get up and leave! that's good preaching.

Congregations shaped by the Scriptures generally have preachers who are shaped by the Scriptures.

This second step calls one to yield to that local part of the Body of Christ, and to dedicate oneself to that congregation and its work.

I think a pastor used to be viewed as the one-stop ministry shop. The pastor served on every committee, volunteered at every event, and made all the hospital visits. I think that is changing and I think that is healthy. Both for the pastor and the congregation.

My grandfather once ventured upon publishing a volume of hymns. I never heard anyone speak in their favour or argue that they ought to have been sung in the congregation. In that volume, he promised a second if the first should prove acceptable. We forgive him the first collection because he did not inflict another.