I get asked, ‘What do you miss most about being a pastor?’ I think it’s the intimacy, the incredible gift of intimacy. You go through death with somebody, with their families, and there’s an intimacy that comes through that that is just incomparable.
My dad was a Seventh-Day Adventist pastor, and from an early age I was put off by being force-fed a belief system.
I’m really passionate about God and religion, and I thought maybe I’m supposed to be a pastor.
I certainly respect other people’s opinions, but I would not vote for a woman to be the pastor of a church.
I’m a pastor. I say, ‘Let the church say amen,’ and that settles it. Everything has been said, you know; it’s like we have to agree with God.
My father was a pastor, my mother was the quintessential pastor’s wife.
As a pastor I understand the power and the possibility of coming together with those with whom we disagree; to have a robust debate on the issues that are important to families and to our country.
I’m not a pastor. I’m not a man of the cloth, but I have my own calling.
I’m a reverend and a pastor. A pastor of the church. I go by usually pastor.
Growing up, my dad was a pastor, and much like The First Family or people in front of the public eye, we were highly scrutinized as a family within the church and looked at as – well, I guess you would call an example of what that family image should be.
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.
Pastor is a driver who doesn’t respect other drivers.
There is no need to be longwinded as a pastor, but there is a difference between being longwinded and preaching for a long time. Preachers should be conscious of time because God does everything in decency and order; nonetheless, God’s word is not on the clock!
Even though I didn’t continue with my therapy, I went to church and received counseling from my pastor and got straight spiritually. I was able to turn away from all those things that were destroying me and finally think clearly.
Had I been more religious in my youth, I might have become a pastor, for it was the pastoral role I’d sought.
God is my best friend. I talk to God every day. And no one can tell me how to talk to God – not no imam, not no priest, not no rabbi, no pastor.
If people don’t know their pastor, it’s easy to put the pastor on a pedestal and depersonalize him or her. It’s also easy for pastors, who don’t know their congregations, simply to classify congregants as saved or unsaved, involved or not involved, tithers or non-tithers.
People who put money in the church basket and people who go to church and pay the pastor: that isn’t real philanthropy; that’s just like you belong to a country club. You pay your dues to belong to that church, so you pay your tithing or whatever it is.
The Crystal Cathedral Ministries, the assets and the buildings, would still be in the hands of the ministries if my father would have simply walked away. When I accepted the role as the next senior pastor, he had agreed to be an ambassador-at-large and raise funds for the endowment fund. He didn’t do that.
As a pastor, I addressed the sorts of issues I see people struggling with most and the issues talked about most directly and most frequently in the New Testament. That leads us to recurring concerns with sexual immorality, relational sins, and vices associated with the breaking of the Ten Commandments.
Religion is a very scary thing, because a pastor is in a position of power. And if you use that power badly, you ruin people’s lives, and you ruin your own life.
I grew up Protestant. My dad was a Charismatic pastor of the Families of God denomination. Often, we noticed that – during a lot of his evangelistic-type services – that some of the Amish and Old Order Mennonite couples would come and stand across the street from the church and look in the door.
The president of the branch in Atlanta was a pastor of a church, the Reverend Sam Williams, a wonderful guy. He was middle-class and fairly militant for the time and place.
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 had said to some pastor that I was having thoughts, and the church turned on me. They went to my mom and said, So sorry about your son.
The Bible is the ultimate authority and infallible, not the pastor and not the elders. And it doesn’t mean that you believe everything he says without examining it.
I’ve never stabbed, hurt, killed, stolen, anything, but I went to jail for a year. What is that? My pastor said to me the fact that I’m not living under a bridge as a crazy woman, talking to myself, is amazing.
My parents are both pastors. In the ’80s and ’90s in the mainstream Christian world, it was not really common for a woman – especially a married woman and a mother – to be a pastor.
The issue is not abortion. The issue is whether women can make up their own mind instead of some right-wing pastor, some right-wing politician telling them what to do.
I have an awesome church home and an awesome Pastor down in L.A., and I couldn’t be happier.
I come from a religious family – my father is a pastor, my uncle, my sister and her husband are a pastor team.
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’m not a pastor; I’ve never been on staff at a church.
The truth is we just have a normal life, because we do have a church where our children are growing up pastor’s children. And we just try to keep it really normal.
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