Quotes & Sayings About Missionary

That strange blend of the commercial traveller, the missionary and the barbarian conqueror, which was the American abroad. — Olaf Stapledon

What we can say for sure is that, at the very least, God calls every Christian to live with a missionary heart. — David Sills

God isn't looking for people of great faith, but for individuals ready to follow Him. — James Hudson Taylor

If there is any substance in what I have said, will not the great missionary bodies of India, to whom she owes a deep debt of gratitude for what they have done and are doing, do still better and serve the spirit of Christianity better by dropping the goal of proselytising while continuing their philanthropic work? — Mahatma Gandhi

Let methods be changed, therefore, if necessary, that prayer may be given its true place. Let there be days set apart for intercession; let the original purpose of the monthly concert of prayer for missions be given a larger place; let missionary prayer cycles be used by families and by individual Christians. — John Mott

If the church is to be missionary, she must be spiritual; and if the church is to be spiritual, she must be missionary. — G. Campbell Morgan

Missionary work is but home teaching to those who are not now members of the Church, and home teaching is nothing more or less than missionary work to Church members — Harold B. Lee

Perhaps the greatest reason for missionary work is to give the world it's chance to hear and accept the gospel. The scriptures are replete with commands and promises and calls and rewards for teach the gospel. I use the word command deliberately for it seems to be an insistent directive from which we, singly and collectively, cannot escape ... I wonder if we are doing all we can. Are we complacent in our approach to teaching all the world? We have been proselyting now 144 years. Are we prepared to lengthen our stride? To enlarge our vision? — Spencer W. Kimball

I go out as a missionary not that I may follow the dictates of common sense, but that I may obey that command of Christ. — James Gilmour

I'm not sure I ever made a woman come with my mouth before I met you," he admits. "I love kissing you there. And I love your ass, it's perfect." With this, I feel his length stir against my stomach as his hands squeeze me. "I like any kind of sex with you, but I prefer being on top of you ... You make missionary feel dirty the way you grab and move under me. — Christina Lauren

His constant, despairing prayer was to be let alone. By the blue waters and rustling palms of his own mind he was happy and harmless as a Polynesian; only when the big ship dropped anchor beyond the coral reef, and the cutter beached in the lagoon, and, up the slope that had never known the print of a boot, there trod the grim invasion of trader, administrator, missionary, and tourist - only then was it time to disinter the archaic weapons of the tribe and sound the drums in the hills; or, more easily, to turn from the sunlit door and lie alone in the darkness, where the impotent, painted deities paraded the walls in vain, and cough his heart out among the rum bottles. And — Evelyn Waugh

What can we do to win these men to Christ? — Richard Wurmbrand

I served as a missionary for my church. I served as a pastor in my congregation for about 10 years. I've sat across the table from people who were out of work and worked with them to try and find new work or to help them through tough times. — Mitt Romney

A missionary is not a missionary until they set their ax against the roots of the culture's sacred oaks. They are not a missionary until they have issued a challenge against the central idols of that culture. A mission that only addresses the individual soul and never the society in which that soul operates is an exercise in futility. Only a comprehensive challenge, a message that proclaims Jesus Christ as Lord over everything - including rulers and powers - can win a nation for Christ. — Bojidar Marinov

God does not have to come and tell me what I must do for Him; He brings me into a relationship with Himself where I hear His call and understand what He wants me to do, and I do it out of sheer love to Him ... When people say they have had a call to foreign service, or to any particular sphere of work, they mean that their relationship to God has enabled them to realize what they can do for God. — Oswald J. Smith

There were two worlds, two lives, for each person: this one
brief, narrow, finite; and the hereafter
eternal, limitless, infinite. Fame, to mean anything, should go with one into the next world, where one could enjoy it perpetually. — Courtney Anderson

The greatest conduct is love in action. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I went to India as a missionary to save England from spiritual collapse. — William Carey

Apostolic and missionary fruitfulness is not principally due to programmes and pastoral methods that are cleverly drawn up and "efficient", but is the result of the community's constant prayer (cf. "Evangelii Nuntiandi," 75). Moreover, for the mission to be effective, communities must be united, that is, they must be "of one heart and soul" (cf. Acts 4:32), and they must be ready to witness to the love and joy that the Holy Spirit instils in the hearts of the faithful (cf. Acts 4:32). — Pope Benedict XVI

Today, our challenge is not so much atheism as the need to respond adequately to many people's thirst for God, lest they try to satisfy it with alienating solutions or with a disembodied Jesus who demands nothing of us with regard to others. Unless these people find in the Church a spirituality which can offer healing and liberation, and fill them with life and peace, while at the same time summoning them to fraternal communion and missionary fruitfulness, they will end up being taken in by solutions which neither make life truly human nor give glory to God (89 — Anonymous

If the Church is 'in Christ,' she is involved in mission. Her whole existence then has a missionary character. Her conduct as well as her words will convince the unbelievers and put their ignorance and stupidity to silence. — David Bosch

Years ago when I served as a missionary, we had a visit from Dr. James E. Talmage of the Council of the Twelve
a great student, a great teacher, great theologian, and a great prophet.. Here we sat at his feet every idle minute that we could find and plied him with questions and listened to his counsel.
On one occasion he said to us, I want to tell you missionaries something. The day of sacrifice is not past! The time will come, yet, when many Saints and even Apostles will yet lose their lives in defense of the truth! — Harold B. Lee

I realized that my life was to be one of simple, childlike faith, and that my part was to trust, not to do. I was to trust in Him and He would work in me to do His good pleasure. From that time my life was different. — Charles Studd

Many years ago, it was my opportunity to serve as president of the Canadian Mission. There we had a branch with very limited priesthood. We always had a missionary presiding over the branch. I received a strong impression that we needed to have a member of the branch preside there. — Thomas S. Monson

The most effective missionsries always act out of love — Dallin H. Oaks

Well, you missed out on some important protocol, Ella. You can't stand between a Texan and his power tools. We like them. Big ones that drain the national grid. We also like truck-stop breakfasts, large moving objects, Monday night football, and the missionary position. We don't drink light beer, drive Smart cars, or admit to knowing the names of more than about five or six colors. And we don't wax our chests, ever. — Lisa Kleypas

I cared not where or how I lived, or what hardships I went through, so I could but gain souls to Christ — David Brainerd

Jacob crammed his eyes shut, listening to that feeble breathing, half expecting every breath to be the last. Lord, did You leave me for a purpose? — Willowy Whisper

We had a missionary zeal about blues music, and I felt, particularly, that Mickie Most was attempting to homogenize, sweeten, and make it accessible for the mass market. Which is understandable if you're the producer, but aggravating if you're the artist. — Alan Price

In our hurry of utilitarian progress, we have either forgotten the Indian altogether, or looked upon him only in a business point of view, as we do almost everything else; as a thriftless, treacherous, drunken fellow, who knows just enough to be troublesome, and who must be cajoled or forced into leaving his hunting-grounds for the occupation of very orderly and virtuous white people, who sell him gunpowder and whiskey, but send him now and then a missionary to teach him that it is wrong to get drunk and murder his neighbor. — Mary H. Eastman

Until the arrival of Spanish troops in 1920, Chefchaouen had been visited by just three Westerners. Two were missionary explorers: Charles de Foucauld, a Frenchman who spent just an hour in the town in 1883, disguised as a Jewish rabbi, and William Summers, an American who was poisoned by the townsfolk here in 1892. The third, in 1889, was the British journalist Walter Harris, whose main impulse, as described in his book, Land of an African Sultan, was "the very fact that there existed within thirty hours' ride of Tangier a city in which it was considered an utter impossibility for a Christian to enter". Thankfully, Chefchaouen today is more welcoming towards outsiders, and a number of the Medina's newer guesthouses now include owners hailing from Britain, Italy and the former Christian enemy, Spain. — Daniel Jacobs

A banker can be as called and as pleasing to God as Billy Graham may be when he preaches. A brewer can serve as valuable a role in the kingdom of God as a missionary, a priest, or a pope. This is the truth of Christianity and this, too, is a core truth of the Guinness story. — Stephen Mansfield

I have known only one way of carrying on missionary work, viz., by personal example and discussion with searchers for knowledge. — Mahatma Gandhi

I wasn't God's first choice for what I've done in China ... I don't know who it was ... it must have been a man ... a well-educated man. I don't know what happened. Perhaps he died. Perhaps he wasn't willing ... and God looked down ... and saw Gladys Aylward ... and God said, 'Well, she's willing.' — Gladys Aylward

One of the greatest sermons ever pronounced on missionary work is this simple thought attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi: 'Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words.' Opportunities to do so are all around us. Do not miss them by waiting too long on the road to Damascus. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Before I got into politics, I wanted to be a missionary to people in the Middle East. I thought it would be better to speak with them in their own language. — Jonathan Krohn

There are two keys to productive missionary work
(1) family-to-family friendshipping (when a member family shares the gospel with a nonmember family) and (2) cooperation between members and the missionaries to reach people ... Every member knows of nonmembers he or she can refer to the missionaries. Every father, mother, and youth in this church should share the gospel by giving a Book of Mormon, telling the account of the Prophet Joseph Smith, or inviting our acquaintances to a special meeting. — Spencer W. Kimball

I am very defective in all duties ... In prayer I wander and am formal ... I soon tire; devotion languishes; and I do not walk with God. — William Carey

Jehovah Witnesses don't believe in hell and neither do most Christians — Leonard Ravenhill

In the vast plain to the north I have sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been. — Robert Moffat

There are still many souls to be won for Christ," she answered with quiet dignity, eyes downcast - but not, he figured, in humility. "Even here. Perhaps, especially here. Where better to spread his love, than a country just recently ravaged by war?"
"Where better to be kidnapped and sold into slavery, than a country just recently ravaged by war?" with a discernible sneer. — V.S. Carnes

Yes, brothers and sisters, the mission of the Church is glorious-to invite all of us to come unto Christ through proclaiming the gospel, perfecting our lives, and redeeming our dead. As we come unto Christ, we bless our own lives, those of our families, and our Father in Heaven's children, both living and dead ...
"I pray that we will be obedient to God, learn His will and do it, and, above all, that we will keep the first and great commandment-to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength" ("Come Unto Christ," April 1988 General Conference). — Ezra Taft Benson

There are others whose lives are blessed when a missionary serves, such as the members of his family who support him, pray for him, and try to live worthy of him. — Gordon B. Hinckley

The researchers concluded that during intercourse in the missionary position, the penis has the shape of a boomerang. — Mary Roach

Behold, Mr. Clavain: Chasm City. A place I have to come to know and, while not actually love, perhaps not to detest with quite the same missionary zeal as when I first arrived. — Alastair Reynolds

I have learned that I will not change the world, Jesus will do that. I can however, change the world for one person. I can change the world for fourteen little girls and for four hundred schoolchildren and for a sick and dying grandmother and for a malnourished, neglected, abused five-year old. And if one persons sees the love of Christ in me, it is worth every minute. In fact, it is worth spending my life for. — Katie J. Davis

The motto for every missionary, whether preacher, printer, or schoolmaster, ought to be 'Devoted for Life.' — Adoniram Judson

Like the Baron, Mathilde developed a formula for acting out life as a series of roles - that is, by saying to herself in the morning while brushing her blond hair, "Today I want to become this or that person," and then proceeding to be that person.
One day she decided she would like to be an elegant representative of a well-known Parisian modiste and go to Peru. All she had to do was to act the role. So she dressed with care, presented herself with extraordinary assurance at the house of the modiste, was engaged to be her representative and given a boat ticket to Lima.
Aboard ship, she behaved like a French missionary of elegance. Her innate talent for recognizing good wines, good perfumes, good dressmaking, marked her as a lady of refinement. — Anais Nin

Imagine the world of mobile based on Nokia and Motorola if Apple had not been restarted by a missionary entrepreneur named Steve Jobs who cared more for his vision than being tactical and financial. — Vinod Khosla

If a commission by an earthly king is considered an honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice? — David Livingstone

To see a thing one has to comprehend it. An armchair presupposes the human body, its joints and limbs; a pair of scissors, the act of cutting. What can be said of a lamp or a car? The savage cannot comprehend the missionary's Bible; the passenger does not see the same rigging as the sailors. If we really saw the world, maybe we would understand it. — Jorge Luis Borges

1845, when the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society declared that any slave owner would be disqualified from consideration for missionary service, Baptist churches in the South seceded and formed the Southern Baptist Convention so that members would not have to choose between their slaves and their calling to be missionaries. — Robert P. Jones

The aim of the missionary is to do God's will, not to be useful, not to win the heathan; he is useful and does win the heathen, but that is not his aim. His aim is to do the will of his Lord. — Oswald Chambers

You're wasted on the occasional bout of missionary sex with a disinterested man. — Kitty French

Missionary work is a manifestation of our spiritual identity and heritage. We were foreordained in the premortal existence and born into mortality to fulfill the covenant and promise God made to Abraham. We are here upon the earth at this time to magnify the priesthood and to preach the gospel. That is who we are, and that is why we are here - today and always. — David A. Bednar

The early Mormons were even less concerned about ministerial training. On several occasions, a man heard a discourse, submitted to baptism and confirmation, received a call to priesthood, and was sent on a mission - all on the same day. Canadian Samuel Hall, for instance, found a Latter-Day Saint tract on a Montreal street and traveled to Nauvoo to hear the teachings of Joseph Smith himself. On the day of his arrival, he heard a sermon by Smith, requested baptism, received ordination, and started on a mission - without even pausing to change his wet clothes. — Nathan O. Hatch

I esteem it the crowning mercy of my life that not only the chief ends I contemplated on becoming a missionary are attained, but I am allowed to see competent, faithful, and affectionate successors actively engaged in the work. — Adoniram Judson

God had an only Son and He made Him a missionary. — David Livingstone

The business of the missionary, and the business of the Christian Church in any situation, is to challenge the plausibility structure in the light of God's revelation of the real meaning of history. — Lesslie Newbigin

Monotheists have tended to be far more fanatical and missionary than polytheists. A religion that recognises the legitimacy of other faiths implies either that its god is not the supreme power of the universe, or that it received from God just part of the universal truth. Since monotheists have usually believed that they are in possession of the entire message of the one and only God, they have been compelled to discredit all other religions. Over the last two millennia, monotheists repeatedly tried to strengthen their hand by violently exterminating all competition. It — Yuval Noah Harari

From that day on I go to each door in turn and sing the three songs that I remember from school. Within a few days I'm overwhelmed how happy they appear to be when they hear or recognize me. — Corinne Hofmann

Brother, if you would enter that Province, you must go forward on your knees. — Hudson Taylor

The missionary spirit is the spirit of Jesus, the spirit of the incarnation and the cross. — Hudson Taylor

I look like a gay Mormon missionary," he lamented in the mirror. "Pardon me, have you heard the word of the Lord? It's fabulous!" He — T.J. Klune

A missionary should never permit himself to see a movie or (read) cheap literature, or hear music that tends to interfere with or which dampens the spirit of missionary work. There is ample evidence that rock music is offensive to the Spirit and affects adversely the spirituality of the missionaries and thus the success of the proselyting work. — Ezra Taft Benson

I believe that in each generation God has called enough men and women to evangelize all the yet unreached tribes of the earth. It is not God who does not call. It is man who will not respond! — Isobel Miller Kuhn

Once one is convinced of the idea of eternal life or death, the person may do almost anything to achieve the reward or avoid punishment. He may fly an airplane into a building or become a missionary to another county. She may become a celibate nun or vow to raise a quiver full of children and homeschool them according to her religion. At the very least, the person will attend church regularly, give money, pray and do other things to ensure good standing with the deity. The root of this action is the hope for a reward and avoidance of punishment. — Darrel Ray

Prayer is lifting up empty hands to an abundant God. Harvey Kneisel, missionary — Mary Ann Bridgwater

The Holy Spirit gives us joy. And he is joy. Joy is the gift in which all the other gifts are included. It is the expression of happiness, of being in harmony with ourselves, that which can only come from being in harmony with God and with his creation. It belongs to the nature of joy to be radiant; it must communicate itself. The missionary spirit of the Church is none other than the impulse to communicate the joy which has been given. — Pope Benedict XVI

Men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. — H.G.Wells

It is our duty to save the world. That is our mission, insofar as they will listen unto us and receive our testimony ... — Nathan Eldon Tanner

In ways that certain of us are uncomfortable about, SNOOTs' attitudes about contemporary usage resemble religious/political conservatives' attitudes about contemporary culture. We combine a missionary zeal and a near-neural faith in our beliefs' importance with a curmudgeonly hell-in-a-handbasket despair at the way English is routinely manhandled and corrupted by supposedly educated people. The Evil is all around us: boners and clunkers and solecistic howlers and bursts of voguish linguistic methane that make any SNOOT's cheek twitch and forehead darken. A fellow SNOOT I know likes to say that listening to most people's English feels like watching somebody use a Stradivarius to pound nails: We are the Few, the Proud, the Appalled at Everyone Else. — David Foster Wallace

Tell the students to give up their small ambitions and come eastward to preach the gospel of Christ. — Francis Xavier

Just because you're in the missionary position don't make you no missionary. — Billie Joe Armstrong

If God wills the evangelization of the world, and you refuse to support missions, then you are opposed
to the will of God. — Oswald J. Smith

God uses men who are weak and feeble enough to lean on him. — James Hudson Taylor

Men should not be sexing their women in the missionary position because they are facing away from the sky. Instead of looking down, men are to look up. To the vastness of Father Sky — Matthew Fox

I would rather die for Christ than rule the whole earth. — Ignatius Of Antioch

We can all be more consistently involved in missionary work by replacing our fear with real faith. — M. Russell Ballard

Serve one another with great humility. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The more seriously we work on our own imperfections, the less we are judgemental of the imperfections of others. — Neal A. Maxwell

Nature is God's first missionary. Where there is no Bible there are sparkling stars. Where there are not preachers there are spring times ...
If a person has nothing but nature, then nature is enough to reveal something about God. — Max Lucado

Sometimes I thought of the Peace Corps as a reverse refugee organization, displacing all of us lost Midwesterners, and it was probably the only government entity that taught Americans to abandon key national characteristics. Pride, ambition, impatience, the instinct to control, the desire to accumulate, the missionary impulse - all of it slipped away. — Peter Hessler

The secret of the missionary is ... I am His, and He is carrying out His work through me. — Oswald Chambers

If one religion were 'true,' we would expect to see, even if only once in all of recorded history, a religious missionary that had stumbled upon a culture that shared the same revelations - brought forth by the same deity. — David G. McAfee

You know I still don't like your ... hobby."
"Didn't ask your opinion." Jake rubbed his aching ribs. "If you want mine: anyone using the missionary position twice in a row should serve time. — Cherise Sinclair

Our duty is to preach the gospel to all men ... This is what God expects of us — John Taylor

A visionary is someone who sees what is possible, who sees the potential. A missionary is someone who carries out that work. — Mario Chinas

He was an innovator, an experimenter, a missionary in bringing the gospel of good cooking to the home table. — Craig Claiborne

A Christian mother's first duty is to soil her child's mind, and she does not neglect it. Her lad grows up to be a missionary, and goes to the innocent savage and to the civilized Japanese, and soils their minds. Whereupon they adopt immodesty, they conceal their bodies, they stop bathing naked together. — Mark Twain

The Christian family is missionary: it announces the love of God to the world. — Pope Francis

Esmenda Jenkins Dube the first was all about fair
and saw her house as an oasis in the middle
of corruption, saw herself as a missionary
converting stupidity into reason. She thought
that was much more useful than a miracle. — Thylias Moss

Give according to your income lest God make your income according to your giving. — Peter Marshall

Work with enthusiasm. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The technologist was the final guise of the white missionary, industrialization the last gospel of a dying race and living standards a substitute for a purpose in living. — Max Frisch

Unless he'd missed is guess, Miss Joanna Robbins possessed the soul of a missionary. How that had come to be when she'd been raised by an outlaw and his gang, Crockett couldn't fathom. Yet he sensed her passion. Respected it. He'd not belittle her dream. — Karen Witemeyer

There is nothing so important, so imperative, as the delivery of the divine message that has been entrusted to us. — Orson F. Whitney

Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of missionary enthusiasm! — Pope Francis

I wanted to be a district attorney and solve hidden problems or maybe even be a leper-colony missionary and save people. — Diane Ladd

Premillennialists tended to have an even more melancholy view of nonChristians than had prevailed among their predecessors; sometimes this view was applied even to those who professed to be Christians but clearly had a different understanding of the gospel. All reality was, in essentially Manichean categories, divided into neat antitheses: good and evil, the saved and the lost, the true and the false (cf Marsden 1980:211). "In this dichotomized worldview, ambiguity was rare" (:225). Conversion was a crisis experience, a transfer from absolute darkness to absolute light. The millions on their way to perdition should therefore be snatched from the jaws of hell as soon as possible. Missionary motivation shifted gradually from emphasizing the depth of God's love to concentrating on the imminence and horror of divine judgment. — David J. Bosch