Quotes about Pastoral

There are many things which are pastorally helpful in the short or medium term which are not in fact grounded on the deepest possible reading of Scripture. That is simply a testimony to the grace of God: we don't have to get everything right before anything can work! But if the church is to be built up and nurtured in Scripture it must be semper reformanda, submitting all its traditions to the Word of God.

When all the flocks had been gathered there, the shepherds would roll away the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep. Then they would return the stone to its place over the mouth of the well.

I cannot illustrate huge differences between male and female spiritualities except in their starting points, style and fascinations along the way. This is significant, however, and has huge pastoral implications: men must be challenged in the world of doing; women must be challenged in the world of relating.

Opposition is an inevitable reality of pastoral life.

It's amazing how many introverts go into the ministry.

My life often feels like a whirling dervish of kids, writing, speaking, and pastoral ministry.

The fact that Bultmann proceeds from a pastoral and missionary motive - namely, to preserve modern man from rejecting the New Testament because of its mythical structure - does not diminish by one iota the theological presumption of this undertaking.

The difficult pastoral art is to encourage people to grow in excellence and to live selflessly, at one and the same time to lose the self and find the self. It is paradoxical, but it is not impossible.

The pastoral itch to be where "the action is" should be resisted.

The so-called spirituality that was handed to me by those who put me to the task of pastoral work was not adequate. I do not find the emaciated, exhausted spirituality of institutional careerism adequate. I do not find the veneered, cosmetic spirituality of personal charisma adequate.

When I look for help in developing my pastoral craft and nurturing my pastoral vocation, the one century that has the least to commend it is the twentieth. Has any century been so fascinated with gimmickry, so surfeited with fads, so addicted to nostrums, so unaware of God, so out of touch with the underground spiritual streams which water eternal life?

Pastoral work is a commitment to the everyday: it is an act of faith that the great truths of salvation are workable in the "ordinary universe."