Dallas Willard Quotes

I had received Christ as my savior when I was a child, but I didn't know anything. I didn't have any knowledge. I didn't go to church. And I had a lot of problems, and I needed somebody to kind of help me along. And I think sometimes even people who want to serve God, if they have got so many problems that they don't think right and they don't act right and they don't behave right, they almost need somebody to take them by the hand and help lead them through the early years. And that's really what discipleship is. It's helping people.

The people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials.

I get scared to death when I see people who say they've found Jesus Christ, and they're out there, and I wonder, who's teaching them? Who's mentoring them?

I take my role seriously as a pastor.

I have to go on being a priest and bishop, that is, to celebrate God and what God has done in Jesus, and to offer in God's name whatever I can discern of God's perspective on the world around - something which involves both challenge and comfort.

Once Jesus had blazed the trail, his twelve disciples could carry on his mission without his presence.

Jesus said, 'Go ... and make disciples,' not converts to your opinions.

To be a Christian who is willing to travel with Christ on his downward road requires being willing to detach oneself constantly from any need to be relevant, and to trust ever more deeply the Word of God.

When you choose to follow Christ, you choose to be changed.

I am a follower of Jesus Christ. The Bible is my primary way of knowing Him and what it means to follow Him. And I am a pastor, and I teach and preach the Bible to my congregation every week. But the Bible is not a manufacturer's handbook. Neither is it a science textbook nor a guidebook for public policy.

I think that when you follow Christ, one of the things that happens when you start listening to His voice is that you really are alone.

Preaching on Sunday mornings is such a simple thing, and by complicating it, I think we all do ourselves and the audience a disservice. It is very simple. Here is the model: Make people feel like they need an answer to a question.

Preaching is God's great institution for the planting and maturing of spiritual life. When properly executed, its benefits are untold; when wrongly executed, no evil can exceed its damaging results.

Eighteen years ago, the Holy Spirit led me to establish a church in the heart of Times Square.

We want to reach out to the young people. We want the hearts of the young people to turn to God.

Preachers are not called to be politicians but soul winners.

How indifferent are men to this carpenter or that fisherman, who has no word to speak of adventure or of wealth, but has only the word of God to proclaim, and has no credentials but that he comes in the name of the Lord.

I'm at least smart enough to know I could never fill Billy Graham's shoes, but I'm grateful he gave me an opportunity to help him finish his race on earth well and to continue his life's work.

I think I used to not know if I could be a good pastor because I think I had some things in mind that I thought were part of being a pastor that don't necessarily have to be.

I have led many high-profile people to the Lord.

There are different pastors that are good at different things, but one of the things I love is everything I do as a pastor is centered around helping people to understand what God has said in his word, so I don't have to come up with a bunch of new stuff to say.

If I'm on stage and ministering my heart and pointing people to Christ, then that's all I can do.

The children of God all have a cross to bear. A suffering Savior generally has suffering disciples.

If we are leading but not closely following Christ, we are misleading.

The emphasis to-day is being put on the fact that we have to save men; we have not. We have to exalt the Saviour Who saves men, and then make disciples in His Name.