Missionary Quotes

There are grave difficulties on every hand, and more are looming ahead. Therefore, we must go forward. ~ William Carey

Every day is predetermined by God. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Serving throughout the world is a great missionary force going about doing good. Missionaries teach truth. They dispel darkness. They spread joy. They bring precious souls to Christ. ~ Thomas S. Monson

It wouldn't pay to get fresh with a missionary. ~ John Grisham

No other generation but ours can evangelize the present generation. ~ John Mott

Believe like every Hindu in God and His oneness, in rebirth and salvation ... I can no more describe my feeling for Hinduism than for my own wife. She moves me as no other woman in the world can. Not that she has no faults; I daresay she has many more than I see myself. But the feeling of an indissoluble bond is there. Even so I feel for and about Hinduism with all its faults and limitations. Nothing delights me so much as the music of the Gita, or the Ramayana by Tulsidas. When I fancied I was taking my last breath, the Gita was my solace. Hinduism is not an exclusive religion. In it there is room for the worship of all the prophets of the world. 11 It is not a missionary religion in the ordinary sense of the term. It has no doubt absorbed many tribes in its fold, ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

Jesus Himself was the first missionary ... He pledged His followers to be missionaries too! ~ Billy Graham

We can reach our world, if we will. The greatest lack today is not people or funds. The greatest need is prayer. ~ Wesley Duewel

He pushes me onto my back and mounts me, missionary style, while using his hand to rub against my wetness, wiping it up and down his cock. My God, he has done that before and it is the most erotic maneuver I have ever witnessed. ~ Adler

Douglas Thornton [an English Christian missionary to Cairo, Egypt with the Church Missionary Society from 1898-1907] was often more amusing than he tried to be. He had a delightful way of mixing up two kindred proverbs or idioms. Once he told his companions that he always had two strings up his sleeve. They then asked him if he had another card to his bow. Such exchanges enliven heavy committee eetings and create wholesome laughter. ~ J. Oswald Sanders

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

You see Jesus wrecked my life ~ Katie J. Davis

Sometimes your medicine bottle has on it, 'Shake well before using.' That is what God has to do with some of His people. He has to shake them well before they are ever usable. ~ Vance Havner

How is it possible," an educated Mohammedan asked a missionary bishop, "that bread and wine should become the Flesh and Blood of Christ?" The bishop answered, "You were tiny when you were born. You grew big because your body transformed the food you ate into your flesh and blood. If a man's body is able to change bread and wine into flesh and blood, then God can do this far more easily. ~ Stefano M. Manelli

To be a missionary you don't have to cross the sea, you just have to see the cross. ~ Mark Cahill

A good thing to have up your sleeve is a sanctified funny-bone. ~ Charles Studd

In our lifetime, wouldn't it be sad if we spent more time washing dishes or swatting flies or mowing the yard or watching television than praying for world missions? ~ Dave Davidson

I feel it is my duty to plod on, while daylight shall last ... ~ Adoniram Judson

The Church's roots are in the teaching of the apostles, the authentic witnesses of Christ, but she looks to the future, she has the firm consciousness of being sent - sent by Jesus - of being missionary, bearing the name of Jesus by her prayer, proclaiming it and testifying to it. A Church that is closed in on herself and in the past, a Church that only sees the little rules of behavior, of attitude, is a Church that betrays her own identity; a closed Church betrays her own identity! Then, let us rediscover today all the beauty and responsibility of being the Church apostolic! And remember this: the Church is apostolic because we pray - our first duty - and because we proclaim the Gospel by our life and by our words. ~ Pope Francis

I really connect with those moments of doing missionary work down there and just seeing the people that are dying from disease and hunger and malnutrition. ~ Deborah Cox

One of the promising indications of a renewal in the Church's missionary consciousness in recent decades, has been the growing desire of many lay men and women [ ... ] to cooperate generously in the 'missio ad gentes.' As Vatican Council II stressed, the work of evangelization is a fundamental duty incumbent upon the whole People of God. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Does not the Old Testament promise that God will prosper His people? Indeed! God increases our yield so that by giving we can prove that our yield is not our god. God does not prosper a man's business so he can move from a Ford to a Cadillac. God prospers a business so that thousands of unreached peoples can be reached with the gospel. ~ John Piper

As the years passed, new myths arose to explain the mysterious objects the strangers brought from the land of the dead. A nineteenth-century missionary recorded, for example, an African explanation of what happened when captains descended into the holds of their ships to fetch trading goods like cloth. The Africans believed that these goods came not from the ship itself but from a hole that led into the ocean. Sea sprites weave this cloth in an "oceanic factory, and, whenever we need cloth, the captain ... goes to this hole and rings a bell." The sea sprites hand him up their cloth, and the captain "then throws in, as payment, a few dead bodies of black people he has bought from those bad native traders who have bewitched their people and sold them to the white men." The myth was not so far from reality. For what was slavery in the American South, after all, but a system for transforming the labor of black bodies, via cotton plantations, into cloth? ~ Adam Hochschild

If we can abandon our missionary zeal we have less chance of being eaten by cannibals. ~ Carl Whitaker

How seriously have you personally taken the Lord's charge to share His gospel? It is a lifelong responsibility ... to be addressed differently according to the various seasons of your life. ~ Richard G. Scott

My mother taught me a lot of things, but they had big presuppositions built in - like her expectation that I'd be a missionary nurse in a religious order. ~ Faye Wattleton

Ted was a Baptist when he was a child but he became an atheist. It was therefore somewhat surprising that he became involved with the Mormon Church during the summer of 1975. This was a dramatic departure from his religious beliefs, or lack of them. He took the missionary lessons and was baptized into the Mormon Church. ~ Al Carlisle

True Christianity is love in action. There is no better way to manifest love for God than to show an unselfish love for your fellow men. This is the spirit of missionary work ~ David O. McKay

All the resources of the Godhead are at our disposal! ~ Jonathan Goforth

Not every believer has the missionary gift, but every Christian is called to some kind of involvement in missions. We are called to advance the gospel in some way and to participate in the fulfilling of God's purposes in our generation ~ David Shibley

Thomas looked like someone's painting of the forgotten Greek god of body cologne. He had long hair so dark that light itself could not escape it, and even fresh from the shower it was starting to curl. His eyes were the color of thunderclouds, and he never did a single moment of exercise to earn the gratuitous amount of ripple in his musculature. He was wearing jeans and no shirt
his standard household uniform. I once saw him answer the door to speak to a female missionary in the same outfit, and she'd assaulted him in a cloud of forgotten copies of The Watchtower. The tooth marks she left had been interesting. ~ Jim Butcher

The longing of my heart is to make known my glorious Redeemer to those who have never heard. ~ William Chalmers Burns

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

Missionary activity is not so much the work of the church as simply the Church at work. ~ David Bosch

Many years ago while serving as a full-time missionary, I had the privilege of meeting Elder Bruce R. McConkie. He was a new General Authority and had come to tour our mission. My companion and I were assigned to drive him from Missoula to Butte, Montana. As we talked along the way, one of us asked him, "How can we know whom we should marry?" To our surprise, his response was quick and certain.

He asked us to turn to the 88th section of the Doctrine and Covenants, 40th verse, which reads: "For intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light; mercy hath compassion on mercy and claimeth her own; justice continueth its course and claimeth its own; judgment goeth before the face of him who sitteth upon the throne and governeth and executeth all things."

We showed some consternation. Elder McConkie explained to us that if we were men who loved the truth, we would be attracted to others who loved the truth. If we were men of virtue, we would attract others who were virtuous. If we loved light and justice and mercy, we would be attracted to a person who loved these qualities. He then said, "If you are men who love truth and virtue, go and find a young lady with these attributes, and then proceed to fall in love. ~ L. Aldin Porter

Sometimes I feel ... that my cross is heavy beyond endurance ... My heart seems worn out and bruised beyond repair, and in my deep loneliness I often wish to be gone, but God knows best, and I want to do every ounce of work He wants me to do. ~ Charles Studd

It's not easy being a missionary, even with the key to the cosmos in your hand. ~ Philip Zaleski

Missionary work is an identifying feature of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Always has it been; ever shall it be. ~ Thomas S. Monson

Some are trapped in boxes of pea-sized Christianity, full of myths about missions that rob them of incentive to care about the unreached ~ David Bryant

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

Rah speaks prophetically. That is, if we don't learn diversity and racial harmony in our own country, how can we go into the world? To aspiring missionaries he writes, "If you are a white Christian wanting to be a missionary in this day and age, and you have never had a nonwhite mentor, then you will not be a missionary. You will be a colonialist. Instead of taking the gospel message into the world, you will take an Americanized version of the gospel."7 ~ Paul Borthwick

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

Missional leaders are comfortable in the own skin. ~ Gary Rohrmayer

Christ not only died for all: He died for each. ~ Billy Graham

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

If the Lord is coming soon, is this not a very practical motive for greater missionary effort? I know of no other motive that has been so stimulating to myself. ~ Hudson Taylor

For women, we intend to do something in a noble and missionary spirit ... We mean to appeal to their intellects ... and we hereby announce ourselves as determined and bigoted feminists. ~ Frank Crowninshield

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

After all that has been said, the greatest and most important duty is to preach the Gospel ~ Joseph Smith Jr.

There are more Baptist preachers in Texas than Baptist missionaries in all the world. ~ Ray Thompson

The key to ministry in any and every context, both now and for the last two thousand years, is missionary flexibility. ~ Darrin Patrick

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

The missionary calling has sometimes been interpreted as a calling to stem this fearful cataract of souls going to eternal perdition. But I do not find this in the center of the New Testament representation of the missionary calling. ~ Lesslie Newbigin

The greatest missionary is the Bible in the mother tongue. It needs no furlough and is never considered a foreigner. ~ William Cameron Townsend

If we are not full of Him we have nothing to offer to anyone else. ~ Heidi Baker

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

Haven't two hundred years of failed missionary work overseas taught anybody anything? You can't convert people to anything - whether religion, or something as inane as our flicks. ~ Kevin Smith

In fact, studies have demonstrated that the 'success rate' of missionary encounters that take place in the home of a friend or family member is five hundred times higher than encounters in an institutional setting or a public place. ~ Kate Cooper

You know, doing it on the table is quite nice,"Becca added.Lily chiked on her beer.On a table?"really?"Wait. Why did she ask that? Becca raised a brow."Come on,sweet Lily.Don't tell me you"ve never rried it." She blused and shook her head. Was there another way to do it other than with the lights off and missionary? ~ Carrie Ann Ryan

He is not seeking a powerful people to represent Him. Rather, He looks for all those who are weak, foolish, despised, and written off: and He inhabits them with His own strength. ~ Graham Cooke

A true understanding of who God is, who we are, and the missionary task should drive us to our knees and keep us there. ~ Kevin Baggett

Who would be so base as to pick on a wizened, shriveled old lady, well stricken in years, who has consecrated her entire life to the needy and the destitute? On the other hand, who would be so incurious as to leave unexamined the influence and motives of a woman who once boasted of operating more than five hundred convents in upward of 105 countries - "without counting India"? Lone self-sacrificing zealot, or chair of a missionary multinational? The scale alters with the perspective, and the perspective alters with the scale. ~ Christopher Hitchens

God does hear and answer prayers. I have never doubted that fact. From childhood, at my mother's knee where I first learned to pray; as a young man in my teens; as a missionary in foreign lands; as a father; as a Church leader; as a government official, I know without question that it is possible for men and women to reach out in humility and prayer and tap that Unseen Power; to have prayers answered. Man does not stand along, or, at least, he need not stand alone. Prayer will open doors; prayer will remove barriers; prayer will ease pressures; prayer will give inner peace and comfort during times of strain and stress and difficult. Thank God for prayer ~ Ezra Taft Benson

It is impossible for any rational creature to be happy without acting all for God. God Himself could not make him happy any other way ... There is nothing in the world worth living for but doing good and finishing God's work, doing the work that Christ did. I see nothing else in the world that can yield any satisfaction besides living to God, pleasing Him, and doing his whole will. ~ David Brainerd

My ACTIONS should draw people to the God I serve, not my SALES PITCH. If people want what I have, they'll ask me how to get it. If not, that's their business. ~ Stefne Miller

In no other way can the believer become as fully involved with God's work, especially the work of world evangelism, as in intercessory prayer. ~ Dick Eastman

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

I am surprised that I cannot recall whether my desire to become a minister transformed itself into a wish to lead the more militant life of missionary, by a slow process or suddenly. ~ Pierre Loti

It is not, perhaps, entirely because the whale is so excessively unctuous that landsmen seem to regard the eating of him with abhorrence; that appears to result, in some way, from the consideration before mentioned: i.e. that a man should eat a newly murdered thing of the sea, and eat it too by its own light. But no doubt the first man that ever murdered an ox was regarded as murderer; perhaps he was hung; and if he had been put on his trial by oxen, he certainly would have been; and he certainly deserved it if any murderer does. Go to the meat-market of a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds staring up at the long rows of dead quadrupeds. Does not that sight take a tooth out of the cannibal's jaw? Cannibals? who is not a cannibal? I tell you it will be more tolerable for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in the day of judgment, than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, who nailest geese to the ground and featest on their bloated livers in they pate-de-fois-gras.

But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he? and that is adding insult to injury, is it? Look at your knife-handle, there, my civilized and enlightened gourmand dining off that roast beef, what is that handle made of? - what but the bones of the brother of the very ox you are eating? And what do you pick your teeth with, after devouring that fat goose? With a feather ~ Herman Melville

Have you taught a Sunday School class and felt when you finished that you had really taught someone some principle of the gospel that had really helped him or given him a brighter look on life? Remember the feeling of peace and joy that followed? Have you ever taught someone the gospel and received that feeling of joy because he had accepted what you had been teaching? The thrill of missionary work! ~ Eldred G. Smith

I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are the Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? ~ Jeffrey R. Holland

As I have already said, the belief that one's own view of reality is the only reality is the most dangerous or all delusions. It becomes still more dangerous if it is coupled with the missionary zeal to enlighten the rest of the world, whether the rest of the world wishes to be enlightened or not. To refuse to embrace wholeheartedly a particular definition of reality, to dare to see the world differently can become a "think crime" in a truly Orwellian sense as we get steadily closer to 1984. ~ Paul Watzlawick

The Church is missionary by nature and her principal task is evangelization, which aims to proclaim and to witness to Christ and to promote his Gospel of peace and love in every environment and culture. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Prayer is the greatest power God has put into our hands for service - praying is harder than doing, at least I find it so, but the dynamic lies that way to advance the Kingdom. ~ Mary Slessor

But just let the masters of the world -- princes, kings, emperors, powerful majesties, invincible conquerors -- let them only try to make the people dance on a certain day each year in a set place. This is not much to ask, but I dare swear that they will not succeed, whereas, if the humblest missionary comes to such a spot, he will make himself obeyed two thousand years after his death. Every year the people meet together around a rustic church in the name of St. John, St. Martin, St. Benedict, and so on; they come filled with boisterous yet innocent cheerfulness; religion sanctifies this joy and the joy embellishes religion: they forget their sorrows; at night, they think of the pleasure to come on the same day next year, and this date is stamped on their memory.

By the side of this picture put that of the French leaders who have been vested with every power by a shameful Revolution and yet cannot organize a simple fete. ~ Joseph De Maistre

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

I would like a more missionary church,Not so much a tranquil church, but a beautiful church that goes forward. ~ Pope Francis

It is not in our choice to spread the gospel or not. It is our death if we do not. ~ Peter Forsyth

Amazon may be the most beguiling company that ever existed, and it is just getting started. It is both missionary and mercenary ... That has always been a potent combination. ~ Brad Stone

I remember, as a boy, hearing a Christian missionary preach to a crowd in India. Among other sweet things he was telling them was that if he gave a blow to their idol with his stick, what could it do? One of his hearers sharply answered, "If I abuse your God, what can He do?" "You would be punished," said the preacher, "when you die." "So my idol will punish you when you die," retorted the Hindu. The tree is known by its fruits. When I have seen amongst them that are called idolaters, men, the like of whom in morality and spirituality and love I have never seen anywhere, I stop and ask myself, "Can sin beget holiness? ~ Swami Vivekananda

I'm no missionary, and I can't wear any armor, either. I just gotta be the way I am. ~ Jim Croce

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

God, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. And sever any tie in my heart except the tie that binds my heart to Yours. ~ David Livingstone

God's command 'Go ye, and preach the gospel to every creature' was the categorical imperative. The question of personal safety was wholly irrelevant. ~ Elisabeth Elliot

I sha'n't let my prisoners go as easily as all that!' she said. 'Make my hair grow as thick and as black as yours, or else your husbands shall never see daylight again.' 'That is quite simple,' replied the elder sister; 'only you must do as we did - and perhaps you won't like the treatment.' 'If you can bear it, of course I can,' answered the witch. And so the girls told her they had first smeared their heads with pitch and then laid hot stones upon them. 'It is very painful,' said they, 'but there is no other way that we know of. And in order to make sure that all will go right, one of us will hold you down while the other pours on the pitch.' And so they did; and the elder sister let down her hair till it hung over the witch's eyes, so that she might believe it was her own hair growing. Then the other brought a huge stone, and, in short, there was an end of the witch. The sisters were savages who had never seen a missionary. ~ Andrew Lang

My heart goes out to a missionary who does not receive regular mail from home. Generally, a letter once a week is a good rule. But on the other hand, too much mail can be damaging to a missionary's morale. ~ Gordon B. Hinckley

I was real religious when I was young. I wanted to be a missionary. ~ Patti Smith

The end of the [geographical] exploration is the beginning of the [missionary] enterprise. ~ David Livingstone

Pride is the great stumbling block of Zion ... Pride is ugly; it says if you succeed I am a failure ... Pride is basically competitive in nature. When competition ends, pride ends. ~ Ezra Taft Benson

It's not complicated. Just love the one in front of you. ~ Heidi Baker

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

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

I can't seem to fathom that the things important to me are not important to other people as well, and so I come off sounding like a missionary, someone whose job it is to convert rather than listen. ~ David Sedaris

If God has called you to China or any other place and you are sure in your own heart, let nothing deter you.Remember, it is God who has called you and it is the same as when He
called Moses or Samuel. ~ Gladys Aylward

Foreigners cannot enjoy our food, I suppose, any more than we can enjoy theirs. It is not strange; for tastes are made, not born. I might glorify my bill of fare until I was tired; but after all, the Scotchman would shake his head and say, 'Where's your haggis?' and the Fijan would sigh and say, 'Where's your missionary?' ~ Mark Twain

God had only one Son, and He was a missionary. ~ David Livingstone

All crosses are easier to carry when we keep moving. ~ Neal A. Maxwell

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

I am born for God only. Christ is nearer to me than father, or mother, or sister - a near relation, a more affectionate Friend; and I rejoice to follow Him, and to love Him. Blessed Jesus! Thou art all I want - a forerunner to me in all I ever shall go through as a Christian, a minister, or a missionary ... ~ Henry Martyn

If we are faithful to God in little things, we shall gain experience and strength that will be helpful to us in the more serious trials of life. ~ Hudson Taylor