Best 3954 quotes in «church quotes» category

When Jesus was wrapping up his days on earth, he didn't tell us to go to church. He didn't tell us to engage in a spiritualized version of channel surfing, as we hop from place to place in search of just the right programming to entertain us. He told us to get out and actually do the stuff he'd already been doing, painting the hope of God's reign on the canvas of God's world. He told us we're artists.

When new believers come into the Church-when the young and innocent who are so full of life come in-we must treat them with honor and respect. We must be careful not to violate them in anyway. We are held accountable for their spiritual growth.

When others sit, a #StaticJedi is found standing—even standing along, with a message not in hand but secure in heart!

When pursued it becomes clear that this separation between one's self and the Church usually stems from deep unresolved pain or dissatisfaction rooted in early religious upbringing. Sometimes it arises from a contemporary image of the Church as authoritarian, chauvinistic, hypocritical, or unforgiving in nature. Though thirsting spiritually for a relationship, some find it too threatening or the prospects too unsatisfying to have to return to a painful image or experience associated with God and the religious realm. This group ay actually scorn the Church because it is not intellectually acceptable to live with a reality that can only be accepted on faith. "To believe in something non-verifiable,' they say, 'is to be weak in one's thinking.' A point comes on the spiritual journey, however, when a healing of one's early religious experience must occur in order for wholeness to be realized. This healing requires a transformation of the person and of the traditional religious images, symbols, and words. Such transformation allows for a new way to experience these traditions and, therefore, a whole new appreciation of spirituality, It's coming full circle to wholeness.

WHEN SIN HINDERS YOUR WORSHIP. God will never delay His promise. You have delayed Him. "..However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" Luke 18:8b

When society was patriarchal, as it was in the New Testament context and as it has been everywhere in the world except in modern society in our day, the church avoided scandal by going along with it - fundamentally evil as patriarchy was and is. Now, however, that modern society is at least officially egalitarian, the scandal is that the church is NOT going along with society, not rejoicing in the unprecedented freedom to let women and men serve according to gift and call without an arbitrary gender line. This scandal impedes both the evangelism of others and the edification - the retention and development of faith - of those already converted.

When the church begins to entertain the flock and respond to the cult of self—it is diminished to a mere community center.

When the Christian or the church becomes popular with the unbelieving world, something is seriously wrong. Because Christ runs counter to evil and because we are Christ-owned, we must also stand against evil.

When the church need money, they come to the people, but when the people need money the church direct them to pray to God.

When the Holy Spirit demands attention, He clunks you on the head.

When the kingdom leaves the church, the church stops living for herself

When we become strangely silent on increasing interference of Worldly norms into Church culture and don't address it Prayerfully, Wisely and in God's Love then it will soon become a deadly snare in which not only ourselves but we will find our coming generations as well brutally trapped and suffering.

When we consider that so few generations had passed since the church left off disemboweling innocent men before the eyes of their families, burning old women alive in public squares, and torturing scholars to the point of madness for merely speculating about the nature of the stars, it is perhaps little wonder that it failed to think anything had gone terribly amiss in Germany during the war years.

When we look at the life of Jesus, we see that He didn’t draw large crowds for the sake of counting heads or logging attendance. He never gauged effectiveness by nickels and noses. Therefore, the goal of the church should not be to build a megachurch. The end goal is to build a healthy church with mature believers.

When you are close to Christ, you are enclosed in liberty. You can never be intimidated by man if you are intimate with Christ.

When you are up in life your friends get to know who you are. When you are down in life you get to know who your friends are. #minoradjustments101

Where a people prays, there is the hurch; and where the church is; there is never loneliness.

Where everyone is accepted equally as a brother or sister in Christ, and where there is an open forum without a set program and format, believers will be in an environment where their gifts will develop and manifest naturally.

Where did you meet?” he pressed on. I shrugged and considered a little rephrasing. “I was out for a run.” “From who?” I leaned back to take a long, very long, slow sip of that beer. Knox leaned forward. “I think we’re both bullsh*tting here, you ever play that card game?” “With my grandma, every Sunday after church.

Where were Christians before Freud? Up a tree? Were the bereft of all crucial knowledge about man's relationship to God and his neighbor? Was the church's counseling a hopeless, primitive, stone-age activity that should have disappeared with flint knives? Were Christians shut up to sinful, harmful living before the advent of psychotherapy? Did God withhold truth for living until our present age?

Where is Christ Jesus writings on the walls of the Church?

Whether in the name of Just War, Witch-Hunt or the Inquisition, at various points of history for various poppycock reasons the cross had been the weapon of mass destruction in the hands of the orthodox church.

While churches are looking for decisions, Jesus is looking for disciples.

While the system of institutional churches of various stripes has been well established, the recovery of the independent assembly in homes, house by house, according to the New Testament, is still in it's infancy. Ironically, it is the assembly located in homes that the apostles labored to build up. Yet two thousand years later, it is still obscure. However, the Lord Jesus, according to His desire, has not given up and is recovering the assembly back to its rightful prominence. Since it is a fresh discovery by many believers in recent decades, trial and error is still taking place as believers learn and negotiate their way back to assembling as prescribed by the early apostles.

Why does it seem that the church is more interested in people involvement rather than people engagement.

Why at the beginning of things is there always light? Dorrigo Evans' earliest memories were of sun flooding a church hall in which he sat with his mother and grandmother. A wooden church hall. Blinding light and him toddling back and forth, in and out of its transcendent welcome, into the arms of women. Women who loved him. Like entering the sea and returning to the beach. Over and over.

Why is the church failing so miserably in impacting the nations of the earth?

Why we do what do matters. When we lose our why, we lose our way. We inevitably get lost when we don't know why we are doing what we are doing.

Why is it "in" to be a christian, but "out" to live a holy life?

Wilhelm Dilthey puts it rather starkly, "Jesus came announcing the Kingdom of God, but what appeared was the church.

With such luck as this, he rode the beast in the jaunty way that she deserved, back north, seemingly back from Mexico, pulling up finally at an outlying bar-ex-saloon (they had covered the old adobe face with knotty pine, substituted big stone matades for the cuspidors) and having brought her wrecklessly this far did not park her in the little parking lot but in front of the church next door. They had lifted that face too and neonized, but it did no good, they seemed to know they had no chance against an older god, their doors were closed. Thus one could join the pagan worshipers with a self-righteous shrug, through latticed doors.

Will we let ourselves become a Church that calls and welcomes sinners with open arms, that gives courage and hope, or are we a Church closed in on herself? Are we a Church where the love of God dwells, where one cares for the other, where one prays for the other? A final question: what can I, a weak fragile sinner, do? God says to you, Do not be afraid of holiness; do not be afraid to aim high, to let yourself be loved and purified by God; do not be afraid to let yourself be guided by the Holy Spirit. Let us be infected by the holiness of God. Every Christian is called to sanctity...; and sanctity does not consist especially in doing extraordinary things, but in allowing God to act. It is the meeting of our weakness with the strength of his grace, it is saving faith in his action that allows us to live in charity, to do everything with joy and humility, for the glory of God and as a service to our neighbor.

Without Christ a people may always have the freedom to do, but never the power to complete.

Without vision, a church devolves into a lukewarm, aimless organization characterized by infighting, budget grabbing and a dead heart for the lost.

Without the persistent rising up of individuals that seek the Lord and place themselves under His direct leadership, churches will inevitably...slip into human hierarchy, institutionalizing a system of doctrines and practices.

With the overall emphasis on condemnation comes a covertly oppressive message of grace. Mary recalls, “The leader of my women’s Bible study is an ordained clergywoman. She told us that no one’s gone to hell for having sex before marriage. If we ’fall off the wagon,’ just repent.” While this kind of message seems to help balance the Puritanical influence, it falls short of affirming sexual desire and its satisfaction for the single woman. The need to repent still declares that her participation in sexual activity is sinful without exception. This declaration is proving to be false and oppressive, sending the single African American woman on an endless sin/ repent merry-go-round of wondering if G ~ d is pleased with her. This woman’s sexual desire is normative, and unrelenting. What does G ~ d think of her acts of satisfaction, whether alone or with a partner? Perhaps a church can help by preaching and teaching a message of holistic human goodness.

Worship God with deep reverence.

WORSHIP IS ACTION." "Worship is not lazy, boring and sad. Worship is zealous, famous and joyful.

Worship, then, needs to be characterized by hospitality; it needs to be inviting. But at the same time, it should be inviting seekers into the church and its unique story and language. Worship should be an occasion of cross-cultural hospitality. Consider an analogy: when I travel to France, I hope to be made to feel welcome. However, I don't expect my French hosts to become Americans in order to make me feel at home. I don't expect them to start speaking English, ordering pizza, talking about the New York Yankees, and so on. Indeed, if I wanted that, I would have just stayed home! Instead, what I'm hoping for is to be welcomed into their unique French culture; that's why I've come to France in the first place. And I know that this will take some work on my part. I'm expecting things to be different; indeed, I'm looking for just this difference. So also, I think, with hospitable worship: seekers are looking for something our culture can't provide. Many don't want a religious version of what they can already get at the mall. And this is especially true of postmodern or Gen X seekers: they are looking for elements of transcendence and challenge that MTV could never give them. Rather than an MTVized version of the gospel, they are searching for the mysterious practices of the ancient gospel.

Worship gatherings are not always spectacular, but they are always supernatural. And if a church looks for or works for the spectacular, she may miss the supernatural. If a person enters a gathering to be wowed with something impressive, with a style that fits him just right, with an order of service and song selection designed just the right way, that person may miss the supernatural presence of God. Worship is supernatural whenever people come hungry to respond, react, and receive from God for who He is and what He has done. A church worshipping as a Creature of the Word doesn't show up to perform or be entertained; she comes desperate and needy, thirsty for grace, receiving from the Lord and the body of Christ, and then gratefully receiving what she needs as she offers her praise-the only proper response to the God who saves us.

You alone in Europe are not ancient oh Christianity The most modern European is you Pope Pius X And you whom the windows observe shame keeps you From entering a church and confessing this morning You read the prospectuses the catalogues the billboards that sing aloud That's the poetry this morning and for the prose there are the newspapers There are the 25 centime serials full of murder mysteries Portraits of great men and a thousand different headlines ("Zone")

Yes an atheist priest can perfectly minister to a believing congregation and miracles can happen in that congregation. Miracles depend on the faith of the believer, not that of the officiant. A bartender who never takes alcohol can serve alcohol to his clients. What is necessary is that the priest believes he is doing the good work. The congregation needs faith and it helps them. It would be evil to deny them such a service in the name of his lack of faith. - Bangambiki Habyarimana

Yet people are still showing up to lift their hands after all these years even though the church is flawed and broken and beautiful and has a shameful, ugly side to it that I'll bet it wishes it didn't have and repeatedly tries to hide. Just like me. Just like you. Just like always.

Yeshua’s (Jesus’) very life and ministry demonstrate the mutual and respectful existence of divinity and humanity within each person.

...you belong here, and it’s time you realize it. No one put a Scarlet A on your chest. This church is for human beings, not saints and angels.

You are killing your life if you are just going through the traditions and routine of church services with no product to show for it.

You can't have a church town without belief and you can't have belief without intolerance.

You can choose to be part of the solution or part of the problem.

You don't get to turn someone's sanctuary into an unsafe space.

You can't say asses in church unless you are speaking of donkeys.