Great Missionary Quotes

Since we’ve been posting missionary (or related) quotes that we found inspiring on Facebook. I thought we’d share these quotes here for anyone who wants to have them more easily accessible. I will try and reference my sources as much as I can!

1. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teachign them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” ~ Jesus (Matt. 28:19-20)
2. “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.”- William Carey
3. “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t.”- John Piper
4. “We talk of the second coming, half the world has never heard of the first.”- Oswald J. Smith
5. “All roads lead to the judgment seat of Christ.”- Keith Green
6. “Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell, I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of Hell.”- C.T. Studd
7. “When I get to China, I will have no claim on any one for anything. My claim will be alone in God and I must learn before I leave England to move men through God by prayer alone.”- J. Hudson Taylor
8. “In the north I have seen in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been.” ~ Robert Moffat
9. “Christ is either Lord of all, or He is not Lord at all.” J. Hudson Taylor
10. “Be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven…” — Jesus (Matt. 9:2)
11. “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.”J. Hudson Taylor
12. “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
13. “Do not have your concert first, and then tune your instruments afterwards. Begin the day with the Word of God and prayer, and get first of all into harmony with Him.” – J. Hudson Taylor
14. “If you are sick, fast and pray; if the language is hard to learn, fast and pray; if the people will not hear you, fast and pray, if you have nothing to eat, fast and pray.”- Frederick Franson”
15. “A tiny group of believers who have the gospel keep mumbling it over and over to themselves. Meanwhile, millions who have never heard it once fall into the flames of eternal hell without ever hearing the salvation story.”- K.P. Yohannan”
16. “And people who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives… and when the bubble has burst they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted.”- Nate Saint”
17. The missionary William Carey was once berated “Young man, sit down: when God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do it without your aid or mine.”
18. “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”- Jim Elliot
19.  “Acts [the book] is about going to places where you end up and seeing a need for a Bible-believing church or campus ministry, and starting it.” ~ an unknown speaker at a banquet for Campus Christians (Pittsburg State University) in 2008.
20. “The Son of God had missionary supporters (Luke 8:3)” ~ Loren Cunningham from Daring to Live on the Edge (pg. 133)
21. One of the troubling things about the Christian faith is the way we equate attending meetings with Christian service. ~ Garry Winget from The Key Ingredient: Humility (pg. 58)
22. One of the troubling things about the Christian faith is the way we equate attending meetings with Christian service.
23. “How do you know if you are living to far above (or below) those among whom you are ministering? Ask yourself this question: Is this (car, house, lifestyle) helping me or hindering me in winning and discipling people for Jesus?” ~ Loren Cunningham from Daring to Live on the Edge (pp. 160-161)
24. “I would be a very sad man if I lived just for myself.” ~ Aby Vargis (native missionary in India)
25. “When we studied the topics we thought students wanted to know, we didn’t grow; but when we studied the Bible, we did grow.” ~ an unknown speaker at a banquet for Campus Christians (Pittsburg State University) in 2008.
26. “Why should we not …, do something that will prove that we are really in earnest in claiming to be followers of him who, though he was rich, for our sake became poor?” ~ Lottie Moon (Tungchow, China – Sept. 15, 1887)
27. “How many there are … who imagine that because Jesus paid it all, they need pay nothing, forgetting that the prime object of their salvation was that they should follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ in bringing back a lost world to God.” ~ Lottie Moon (Tungchow, China – Sept. 15, 1887)
    

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28. “The Lord did not tell us to build beautiful churches, but to evangelize the world” ~ Oswald J. Smith
29. “Does it not stir up our hearts, to go forth and help them, does it not make us long to leave our luxury, our exceeding abundant light, and go to them that sit in darkness?” ~ Amy Carmichael
30. “If the Great Commission is true, our plans are not too big; they are too small.” ~ Pat Morley
31. “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 Kuhn, missionary to China and Thailand
32. “The command has been to ‘go,’ but we have stayed – in body, gifts, prayer and influence. He has asked us to be witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth … but 99% of Christians have kept puttering around in the homeland.” ~ Robert Savage, Latin American Mission
33. “People who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives … and when the bubble has burst, they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted.” ~ Nate Saint, missionary martyr
34. “The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity.” ~ Mike Stachura
35. “Never pity missionaries; envy them. They are where the real action is – where life and death, sin and grace, Heaven and Hell converge.” ~ Robert C. Shannon
36. “People who don’t believe in missions have not read the New Testament. Right from the beginning Jesus said the field is the world. The early church took Him at His word and went East, West, North and South.” ~ J. Howard Edington
37. “I have but one passion: It is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ.” ~ Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf
38. “If you take missions out of the Bible, you won’t have anything left but the covers” ~ Nina Gunter
39. “Missions is the overflow of our delight in God because missions is the overflow of God’s delight in being God.” ~ John Piper
40. “Go, send, or disobey.” ~ John Piper
41. “The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time” ~ Carl F. H. Henry
42. “If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.” ~ C.T. Studd
43. “If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?” ~ David Livingstone
44. “Sympathy is no substitute for action.” ~ David Livingstone, missionary to Africa
45. “As we have a high old time this Christmas may we who know Christ hear the cry of the damned as they hurtle headlong into the Christless night without ever a chance. May we be moved with compassion as our Lord was. May we shed tears of repentance for these we have failed to bring out of darkness. Beyond the smiling scenes of Bethlehem may we see the crushing agony of Golgotha” ~ Nate Saint, two weeks before he was martyred by the Aucas
46. “The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed” ~ Hudson Taylor
47. “To stay here and disobey God – I can’t afford to take the consequence. I would rather go and obey God than to stay here and know that I disobeyed.” ~ Amanda Berry Smith
48. “Jehovah Witnesses don’t believe in hell and neither do most Christians” ~ Leonard Ravenhill
49. “This generation of Christians is responsible for this generation of souls on the earth!” ~ Keith Green
50. “One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time.” ~ John Piper
51. “The history of missions is the history of answered prayer.” ~ Samuel Zwemer
52. ‘Don’t bother to give God instructions, just report for duty’ ~ Corrie Ten Boom
53. “Faith does not eliminate questions. But faith knows where to take them.” ― Elisabeth Elliot
54. “Going to church doesn’t make you a christian any more than going to McDonald’s makes you a hamburger.” ~ Keith Green
55. “You can give without loving. But you cannot love without giving.” ~ Amy Carmichael, missionary to India

Some of the quotes above were found on HistoryMakers.info