George MacDonald Quotes

When one is required to preside over the Church, and be entrusted with the care of so many souls, the whole female sex must retire before the magnitude of the task, and the majority of men also.

Churches need to figure out how they will address the spiritual lives of their staffs and leadership teams.

I am not a good example of an urban pastor. Because of the way I believe God calls me to use my time, I don't have significant relationships with most of my neighbors.

I think a bishop who doesn't give offence to anyone is probably not a good bishop.

Parsons are soules waggoners.

Pastors must welcome the lost sheep. Actually, I made a mistake. I said welcome, rather, go out and find them.

I am grateful for the men and women who pastor, who lead in churches across our country. Ultimately, their role of loving people and seeing hearts changed is probably the greatest calling.

The life of a conscientious clergyman is not easy. I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain. I would rather have chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls.

The care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate.

Support your priests with your love and prayers, that they may always be shepherds after Christ’s heart

The church is the gym of the soul.

I used to be married to a pastor, and I had a church for two years. Pastors are just men, too, with a different job description than others. We're all called to bear one another's burdens. We're all called to pray for the sick. They do it on a larger scale, but they're just a man. A lot of women don't think that. Trust me. I know.

It is the business of a virtuous clergyman to censure vice in every appearance of it.

I'm a pastor of a local church. I'm not a televangelist. I've never had a televised program. I'm a pastor. A pastor's role is to care and comfort, encourage, teach, and everything that I do, even when I meet with world leaders, is from a pastor's heart.

Let it be known that this is the true Church, in which there is confession and penance and which takes a health-promoting care of the sins and wounds to which the weak flesh is subject.

I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain.

It is our responsibility to speak on social and moral issues for the instruction of the church and its members.

I want to be a pastor in a high school.

The Church does not invent sins but recognizes the will of God and has to declare it. Of course, the great thing.. is that upon the Church, which has to declare the will of God in its full magnitude, in its unconditional rigor, so that man should know his true measure, is bestowed as a gift, at the same time, the task of forgiving.

The man who attempts Christianity without the church shoots himself in the foot, shoots his children in the leg, and shoots his grandchildren in the heart.

The church is a sort of hospital for men's souls and as full of quackery as the hospital for their bodies.

Nothing gives us a greater idea of our soul, than that God has given us, at the moment of our birth, an angel to take care of it.

Without the church it's like having a boat without the rudder. You think you can do it on your own and this may sound pedestrian or trite but I'll equate it to this: all my life I've been involved with exercise but no matter how much - and I know a great deal about the body - you need help. You need a trainer. You need to go to a gym and you need to have the expertise and the guidance of someone else. You cannot train yourself. I feel the same way about Christianity and what the church is. The church is the gym of the soul.

The care of the soul is 'a matter of the highest importance;' beyond any thing which can be brought into comparison with it.

I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle... The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you.