Preaching Bill Quotes

God has called us into a place of tenderness, when nobody is looking, when there are no great decisions to make, when it’s just him and me in a hotel room, with no one to pray for, no one to preach to. When it is just two people in a room, that’s where you learn. That’s where you learn his heartbeat. That’s where you learn the presence. That’s where you learn the voice. It’s in the moments when nobody is watching, nobody is evaluating how good you’re doing. When it is just you and him.

Does the gospel we preach produce disciples or does it produce consumers of religious goods and services?

It is time for us to realize that we are too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams,” he preaches in his inaugural address. “We’re not, as some would have us believe, doomed to inevitable decline. I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. “I believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.” *

We preach about capitalism and the beauty of unfettered market forces determining price--but not when it comes to gas. When it comes to gas, we need it cheap, and the president had better get it for us, or else, we don't care how.

When Jesus commanded, “Make disciples,” he wasn’t simply referring to converts. He wants followers who follow — people who submit to his teachings and his ways. But because we’ve preached a different gospel, a vast throng of people think they are Christian/saved/born again when they really aren’t! We’ve made the test for salvation doctrinal rather than behavioral, ritualizing it with walking the aisle, praying to receive Christ, or signing a doctrinal statement.

Here is an image. The young woman who lives in the Port Authority Bus Terminal has been a crack addict; she has lied, cheated, and stolen. She has learned to manipulate people. At twenty-six, she has wasted her education and lost several jobs. When she is asleep in her blanket on the floor, there is no way for a passerby to know whether or not she is trying to kick her habit and better herself. Yet, according to the article, she constantly finds that bus passengers put one dollar bill, two dollar bills, even a twenty-dollar bill into her blanket while she is asleep. Jesus stoops down to us in our miserable condition, bringing the gifts of new life. He does not ask us what we are doing to make ourselves better; he just gives the gift. He does not ask if we are working to turn ourselves around; he does not ask for a receipt; he puts redemption into our blanket.

Clergymen sometimes preached against the potato on the grounds that it nowhere appears in the Bible.

The people who say, “Preach the gospel, and use words if necessary,” seem to forget that the very essence of the gospel is words. They might as well say, “Feed the poor, and use food if necessary,” or, “Pay the bills, and use money if necessary.” The gospel is primarily a message which must be communicated with words. It is good news which must be believed. The good news is that God sent Jesus to live and die in the place of sinners. People cannot embrace the good news if they don’t first hear the good news. Feeding the poor is a good thing, but it isn’t the same thing as proclaiming the message of the gospel. Caring for the homeless is a noble thing to do, but it isn’t preaching the gospel. Preach the gospel, and use words, always.

When discipleship takes a place alongside leadership, evangelism, preaching, worship, counseling, support groups, and other programs, it ceases to be what it was meant to be: the heart of what it means to be a Christian.

Ordination in the Church of England required a university degree, but most ministers read classics and didn’t study divinity at all, and so had no training in how to preach, provide inspiration or solace, or otherwise offer meaningful Christian support

The morality of need. The pastor preaches to minds that believe bigger is better; the more spectacular the more important; the most important thing about life is that it is enjoyed; basic needs are a nice home, two cars, a three-week paid vacation, several weekends away; life has cheated you unless you have a Caribbean cruise, a DVD player, and an iPod. People have a corrupted sense of need. Needs become values, they take on their own morality. The language of need has replaced the language of greed.

I have heard them preach, when I sat in the pew and my feet did not touch the floor, about the final home of the unconverted. In order to impress upon the children the length of time they would probably stay if they settled in that country, the preacher would frequently give us the following illustration: 'Suppose that once in a billion years a bird should come from some far-distant planet, and carry off in its little bill a grain of sand, a time would finally come when the last atom composing this earth would be carried away; and when this last atom was taken, it would not even be sun up in hell.' Think of such an infamous doctrine being taught to children!

We are too easily satisfied with conventional success: bodies, bucks, and buildings. The average Christian resides in the comfort zone of “I pay the pastor to preach, administrate, and counsel. I pay him, he ministers to me. . . . I am the consumer, he is the retailer. . . . I have the needs, he meets them. . . . That’s what I pay for.

The most compelling new idea that Bratton brought to life stemmed from the broken window theory, which was conceived by the criminologists James Q. Wilson and George Kelling. The broken window theory argues that minor nuisances, if left unchecked, turn into major nuisances: that is, if someone breaks a window and sees it isn’t fixed immediately, he gets the signal that it’s all right to break the rest of the windows and maybe set the building afire too. So with murder raging all around, Bill Bratton’s cops began to police the sort of deeds that used to go unpoliced: jumping a subway turnstile, panhandling too aggressively, urinating in the streets, swabbing a filthy squeegee across a car’s windshield unless the driver made an appropriate “donation.” Most New Yorkers loved this crackdown on its own merit. But they particularly loved the idea, as stoutly preached by Bratton and Giuliani, that choking off these small crimes was like choking off the criminal element’s oxygen supply. Today’s turnstile jumper might easily be wanted for yesterday’s murder. That junkie peeing in an alley might have been on his way to a robbery.

Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. It’s nothing to brag about. And those who preach faith, and enable and elevate it are intellectual slaveholders, keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction. Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don’t have all the answers to think that they do.

Convinced that struggle was the crucible of character, Rockefeller faced a delicate task in raising his children. He wanted to accumulate wealth while inculcating in them the values of his threadbare boyhood. The first step in saving them from extravagance was keeping them ignorant of their father’s affluence. Until they were adults, Rockefeller’s children never visited his office or refineries, and even then they were accompanied by company officials, never Father. At home, Rockefeller created a make-believe market economy, calling Cettie the “general manager” and requiring the children to keep careful account books.16They earned pocket money by performing chores and received two cents for killing flies, ten cents for sharpening pencils, five cents per hour for practicing their musical instruments, and a dollar for repairing vases. They were given two cents per day for abstaining from candy and a dime bonus for each consecutive day of abstinence. Each toiled in a separate patch of the vegetable garden, earning a penny for every ten weeds they pulled up. John Jr. got fifteen cents an hour for chopping wood and ten cents per day for superintending paths. Rockefeller took pride in training his children as miniature household workers. Years later, riding on a train with his thirteen-year-old daughter, he told a traveling companion, “This little girl is earning money already. You never could imagine how she does it. I have learned what my gas bills should average when the gas is managed with care, and I have told her that she can have for pin money all that she will save every month on this amount, so she goes around every night and keeps the gas turned down where it is not needed.”17 Rockefeller never tired of preaching economy and whenever a package arrived at home, he made a point of saving the paper and string. Cettie was equally vigilant. When the children clamored for bicycles, John suggested buying one for each child. “No,” said Cettie, “we will buy just one for all of them.” “But, my dear,” John protested, “tricycles do not cost much.” “That is true,” she replied. “It is not the cost. But if they have just one they will learn to give up to one another.”18 So the children shared a single bicycle. Amazingly enough, the four children probably grew up with a level of creature comforts not that far above what Rockefeller had known as a boy.

FOR TOO LONG THE CHURCH has played defense in the battle for souls. We hear of what some cult or political party is planning to do, and we react by creating strategies to counter the enemies’ plans. Committees are formed, boards discuss, and pastors preach against whatever it is the devil is doing or about to do. This may come as a surprise, but I don’t care what the devil plans to do. The Great Commission puts me on the offensive. I’ve got the ball. And if I carry the ball effectively, his plans won’t matter.

Why This Book I HAVE WRITTEN THIS BOOK because I am convinced that there is a way to end most evil.* And ending evil is the most important task humans can ever undertake. The only proven way to achieve this on any large scale is the American value system. These values are proclaimed on every American coin: “Liberty,” “In God We Trust,” “E Pluribus Unum.” Each one is explained at length, and each one is adaptable to just about any society in the world. I have written this book with a number of audiences in mind: It is written first for Americans who already affirm American values. To those who would argue that this is an unnecessary exercise in “preaching to the choir,” I would say that, unfortunately, this is not the case. Most of the choir have forgotten the melody. Few Americans can articulate what is distinctive about American values, or even what they are. There is, in fact, a thirst among Americans for rediscovering and reaffirming American values. I know this from my daily radio show, and I know this from a personal experience. A few years ago, at a public forum at the University of Denver, I was asked by the moderator, former Colorado senator Bill Armstrong, what I thought the greatest problem confronting America was. I answered that it was that the last two generations of Americans have not communicated what it means to be American to their children. Someone in the audience videotaped my response and put it on YouTube, where millions of people have seen it. A lot of Americans realize we have forgotten what we stand for.

Fear and doubt are conquered by a faith that rejoices. And faith can rejoice because the promises of God are as certain as God Himself. Kay Arthur For Christians who believe God’s promises, the future is actually too bright to comprehend. Marie T. Freeman The love of God is so vast, the power of His touch so invigorating, we could just stay in His presence for hours, soaking up His glory, basking in His blessings. Debra Evans MORE FROM GOD’S WORD Whatever God has promised gets stamped with the Yes of Jesus. In him, this is what we preach and pray, the great Amen, God’s Yes and our Yes together, gloriously evident. 2 Corinthians 1:20 MSG Let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word. Hebrews 10:23 MSG For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. Hebrews 10:36 KJV And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Hebrews 6:11-12 NASB You will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished by the words of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed. 1 Timothy 4:6 HCSB Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Matthew 4:4 NKJV SHADES OF GRACE Grace comes from the heart of a gracious God who wants to stun you and overwhelm you with a gift you don’t deserve—salvation, adoption, a spiritual ability to use in kingdom service, answered prayer, the church, His presence, His wisdom, His guidance, His love. Bill Hybels

So there is suffering God allows for the sake of the preaching of the gospel. This suffering usually falls into the category of persecution. In 1 Corinthians 4:12 we read, “Being persecuted, we endure.” Jesus reminded us, “If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20). Paul wrote, “Share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God” (2 Tim. 1:8). Many of the apostles suffered torturous deaths, stoning, beatings, and imprisonment because of their preaching of the gospel. In Acts 9:16 the Lord, speaking of Paul, said, “For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.” One example of Paul’s suffering can be seen in Acts 16, where Paul and Silas were beaten and thrown into prison for preaching the gospel. If God would allow His own apostles to suffer, then how much more will He allow you and me to suffer! But He reminds us to remember this: “Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good” (1 Pet. 4:19). Always keep in mind that our suffering must be in accordance with the will of God and not because of our own ignorance or disobedience to His Word, which can result in unnecessary suffering. I believe the twenty-three minutes I spent in hell has caused me to accomplish more than I would have ever attempted to accomplish before the experience. The joy of seeing even one person come to Christ far outweighs any pain I experienced.

When you start following Jesus, you begin to prove you believe what he says.

As humans, we tend to take the blessings of the gospel—which should lead us to receiving Christ’s love and sharing it with others—and instead hoard them selfishly (even violently!) for ourselves. Doing this distorts the gospel from being others-focused to being self-focused.

Then there was the Black Liberation Army, which murdered seventeen American police officers in the 1970s, including six in New York City alone. There was the Symbionese Liberation Army, of Patty Hearst kidnapping fame. On the other side of the spectrum was the United States Christian Posse Association, a precursor of Aryan Nations, which preached violent white supremacy. It was domestic terror groups such as these that led the assault on the United States. In one poll taken at the time, more than 3 million Americans favored a revolution. The election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 and the strength of capitalism brought an end to the socialist insanity that marked the prior decades. Even Bill Clinton tried to ride the prevailing winds. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act he signed in 1996 sought to combat the cycle of poverty by putting limits on welfare. Still, under the surface, the cracks in the Democrats’ foundation spread and deepened.

I don't like the word atheist because to me it mirrors the certainty of religion. I preach the gospel of I don't know.

One day Bill decided to go into that church. He walked in with no shoes, jeans, a T-shirt, and wild hair. The service had already started, so Bill started down the aisle, looking for a seat. But the church was packed, and he couldn’t find one. By now people were looking a bit uncomfortable, but no one said anything. Bill got closer and closer to the pulpit, and when he realized there were no seats, he just sat down right in the aisle on the carpet. By now the congregation was really uncomfortable, and the tension in the air was thick. About this time, from way at the back of the large church, a deacon was slowly making his way toward Bill. The deacon was in his eighties, with silver-gray hair and a pocket watch, a godly man who was very elegant, dignified, and walked with a cane. It took a long time for the man to reach the boy. The church fell utterly silent, except for the clicking of the man’s cane. All eyes were focused on him; you couldn’t hear anyone breathing. The people were thinking, The minister can’t even preach the sermon until the deacon does what he has to do. The elderly man reached Bill and paused. Then he dropped his cane on the floor and, with great difficulty, lowered himself and sat down next to Bill to worship with him. The church was silent with emotion. When the minister gained control, he said, “What I am about to preach, you will never remember. What you have just seen, you will never forget.”8

It takes big money to preach a big Gospel to a great big world. We have to have our own land. We have to pay electricity bills, water bills, generator bills, staff payment, security, the audit department needs money, and there are legalities that require money.

I say I have made it a rule not to preach. However, anyone who is 101 has earned the right to break her own rules. Once in a while, at least. And so, I am going to give you one piece of advice. Pause once a day and relish the moment. Look around. Notice the colours, the smells and the sounds. Take them in, for that moment will pass and no one can say what the next moment will bring. I know this better than most.

The main reason not all Christians receive the gift of a spirit language is the lack of knowledge that the gift is for every Christian and not knowing the many valuable benefits of a spirit language. The reason most Christians do not know these things is because their pastors do not preach it. “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of Whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Rom. 10:14). The reason many ministers do not preach about receiving the gift of one’s spirit language and its benefits is based on their understanding and relationship in the origination, deterioration, and restoration of the Church. STANDARD DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE Preaching about the gift of the Holy Spirit was standard practice of Apostle Peter and Apostle Paul in the book of Acts. The

The guns on both sides were silent until they returned. Suddenly, a fierce cannonade from the British ships exploded onto the beach at Turtle Gut Inlet, but only one American was hit, “Shott through the arm and body.” It was Richard Wickes. A cannonball took his arm and half his chest away. Fresh from the Reprisal, Lambert Wickes arrived on the beach at the head of his reinforcements just as his younger brother died: “I arrived just at the Close of the Action Time enough to see him expire . . . Captn Barry . . . says a braver Man never existed.”123 Taking Richard Wickes's body, the American sailors left the spit of sand they fought over that morning. The powder was stowed in the Wasp's hold and sent up the Delaware. “At 2 weighed and made Sail,” Hudson briefly noted in his journal.124 The British returned to Cape Henlopen. As before, Barry had taken long odds, assessed the best plan that could succeed, and beaten the British. The Nancy was destroyed, but the Wasp would reach Philadelphia safely with the desperately needed gunpowder. Despite superior firepower, the “butcher's bill” was far heavier for the British. But the victory brought no cheers or satisfaction among the Americans, and Barry was particularly saddened by the death of the gallant young Wickes.125 The next morning—Sunday, June 30—the men of the Lexington and Reprisal gathered to mourn their shipmate at the log meetinghouse in the small village of Cold Spring, just north of Cape May. Under the same light breezes of the day before, the American sailors, with “bowed and uncovered heads,” filed inside and sat on the long, rough-cut wooden pews. After “The Clergyman preached a very deacent Sermon,” Lambert Wickes and the Reprisal's officers silently hoisted the coffin. Shuffling under its weight, they carried it outside to the little cemetery, and laid their comrade to rest.126 Lambert Wickes now faced the task of informing his family in Maryland of Richard's death. On July 2, in a sad but disjointed letter to his brother Samuel, he mentioned Richard's death among a list of the items—including the sugar and “one Bagg Coffee” that accompanied the letter. “You'll disclose this Secret with as much Caution as possible to our Sisters,” he pleaded. He quoted Barry's report that Richard “fought like a brave Man & was fore most in every transaction of that day,” dying for the cause of the “united Colonies.”127 By the time Lambert's package reached his family in Maryland, the “united Colonies” ceased to exist as well. The same day Wickes posted his letter, Congress approved the Declaration of Independence. Barry, Wickes, and the rest of the Continental Navy were now fighting for the survival of a new country: the United States of America.

Etymologically, paroikia (a compound word from para and oikos) literally means “next to” or “alongside of the house” and, in a technical sense, meant a group of resident aliens. This sense of “parish” carried a theological context into the life of the Early Church and meant a “Christian society of strangers or aliens whose true state or citizenship is in heaven.” So whether one’s flock consists of fifty people in a church which can financially sustain a priest or if it is merely a few people in a living room whose priest must find secular employment, it is a parish. This original meaning of parish also implies the kind of evangelism that accompanies the call of a true parish priest. A parish is a geographical distinction rather than a member-oriented distinction. A priest’s duties do not pertain only to the people who fill the pews of his church on a Sunday morning. He is a priest to everyone who fills the houses in the “cure” where God as placed him. This ministry might not look like choir rehearsals, rector’s meetings, midweek “extreme” youth nights, or Saturday weddings. Instead, it looks like helping a battered wife find shelter from her abusive husband, discretely paying a poor neighbor’s heating oil bill when their tank runs empty in the middle of a bitter snow storm, providing an extra set of hands to a farmer who needs to get all of his freshly-baled hay in the barn before it rains that night, taking food from his own pantry or freezer to help feed a neighbor’s family, or offering his home for emergency foster care. This kind of “parochial” ministry was best modeled by the old Russian staretzi (holy men) who found every opportunity to incarnate the hands and feet of Christ to the communities where they lived. Perhaps Geoffrey Chaucer caught a glimpse of the true nature of parish life through his introduction of the “Parson” in the Prologue of The Canterbury Tales. Note how the issues of sacrifice, humility, and community mentioned above characterize this Parson’s cure even when opportunities were available for “greater” things: "There was a good man of religion, a poor Parson, but rich in holy thought and deed. He was also a learned man, a clerk, and would faithfully preach Christ’s gospel and devoutly instruct his parishioners. He was benign, wonderfully diligent, and patient in adversity, as he was often tested. He was loath to excommunicate for unpaid tithes, but rather would give to his poor parishioners out of the church alms and also of his own substance; in little he found sufficiency. His parish was wide and the houses far apart, but not even for thunder or rain did he neglect to visit the farthest, great or small, in sickness or misfortune, going on foot, a staff in his hand… He would not farm out his benefice, nor leave his sheep stuck fast in the mire, while he ran to London to St. Paul’s, to get an easy appointment as a chantry-priest, or to be retained by some guild, but dwelled at home and guarded his fold well, so that the wolf would not make it miscarry… There was nowhere a better priest than he. He looked for no pomp and reverence, nor yet was his conscience too particular; but the teaching of Christ and his apostles he taught, and first he followed it himself." As we can see, the distinction between the work of worship and the work of ministry becomes clear. We worship God via the Eucharist. We serve God via our ministry to others. Large congregations make it possible for clergy and congregation to worship anonymously (even with strangers) while often omitting ministry altogether. No wonder Satan wants to discredit house churches and make them “odd things”! Thus, while the actual house church may only boast a membership in the single digits, the house church parish is much larger—perhaps into the hundreds as is the case with my own—and the overall ministry is more like that of Christ’s own—feeding, healing, forgiving, engaging in all the cycles of community life, whether the people attend

Your task in preaching is not to get through your message. Your task is to get through to your audience.