Best 3954 quotes in «church quotes» category

Intellectualism is a poor master over passion

Integrity is this sense of being true to self, true to G ~ d, and true to community. We were exploring where we were not in truth in those three areas. It’s not about permission to have sex with whomever we want. It is about the challenge of owning our truths with our faith, our G ~ d, and our community.

In the churches I used to go to, I felt like I didn't fit in... I was accepted but not understood. There was room at the table for me, but I was not part of the family.

In their churches the Protestants taught believers to go out of the four walls of the church to demonstrate their love for God by how they serve fellow humans

In the West, the great problem that was created for Christianity from the 17th century onward and even earlier during the Renaissance was that religion began to retreat from one domain after another in order to accommodate the forces of modernism and secularism. One can point to the Galileo trial, after which the Church ‘‘lost the cosmos.’’ In fact, the Church was right in many ways, because what Galileo was saying did not concern astronomy alone, but also theology, which was quite something else. As a consequence of this trial, the Church withdrew from its concern with the sciences of nature and no longer challenged what kind of science was developed, and suf- fered the results of accepting the reductionism and materialistic views of modern science. This process resulted in the complete secularization of nature and the cosmos.

In this current generation, the church is not prospering in its mandate to extend kingdom principles throughout culture

In thousands of churches [people] are led astray theologically. Thus spiritually and morally they are drifting aimlessly, without compass or guide.

In today's society, Christians have a bad rap for things like holding picketing signs, screaming mantras of hate, and bombing abortion clinics. Somehow, I don't think that's showing love.

Invisible Christians in the world are only visible in church on Sunday.

I painlessly came to realize that the reverence I felt for the holiness of life is not ever likely to be entirely at home in organized religion. It was later, when I was able to travel farther , that the presence of holiness and mystery seemed, as far as my vision was able to see, to descend into the windows of Chartres, the stone peasant figures of Autun, the tall sheets of gold on the walls of Torcello that reflected the light of the sea; in the frescoes of Piero, of Giotto; in the shell of a church wall in Ireland still standing on a floor of sheep-cropped grass with no ceiling other than he changing sky.

I played my role as the good Christian girl and spared everyone the drama of an argument. But that decision to remain silent split me in two. It convinced me that I could never really be myself in church. That I had to check my heart and mind at the door.

I recommend getting yourself out from under any ministry that PREACHES LAW or a MIXTURE OF LAW AND GRACE, and instead listening to or reading anything you can find to reinforce the GRACE MESSAGE.

Ironically, (the church's) respect in the world declines in proportion to how vigorously we attempt to force others to adopt our point of view.

I reflected on other victims I had met and how they were raped right on the altars of their own churches. Some of them were altar boys, and they were abused before or after mass. An altar boy walked right in front of us as we sat there. I began to shake, sweat, and become very uneasy. I felt frozen in my seat.

I regret the immaturity with which I approached the problems and tasks of the ministry but I do not regret the years devoted to the parish.

I remember my father, who had served in Vietnam, once talking to me about how real courage is when you're scared out of your mind but you do what you have to do anyway. I didn't feel very courageous at the moment. I felt like a small mouse in the mouth of a lion.

I say, ‘We believe in a Christ’. If that being existed physically or not, it’s still important, because the message was so basic and sensible and powerful, that we should live by those truths. Love, compassion, generosity. God doesn’t punish anyone. Churches aren’t needed. Money in connection to belief is an abomination. They say, ‘Oh…’. Then they quote the Old Testament.

Is it not strange that it should be precisely our century—a century of social science and of solidarity if ever there was one, and consequently of authority, apart from wandering into the most inconsistent Utopias—which rejects the Church because she refuses to be individualist! Thinking that they had destroyed the religious life by killing it in themselves, we saw its politicians attempt but yesterday to replace it by enunciating theories of moral unity, of monopoly and spiritual collectivism, theories which cannot express anything except on condition of inviting men to erect once more, and this time arbitrarily, the authority they claimed they had destroyed.

It could be said that going to church will not make one a Christian. But . . . refusing to fellowship with believers will not make you one either.

I sometimes wonder if God calls us into the church because it represents not the people of God at their best but us at our worst. I wonder if he calls us to become embedded in this wretched institution precisely because it is wretched. And calls us to be a part of it not to reform it or save it or control it in any way, but to simply love it.

I stepped inside a church once, when it was raining really hard and I couldn’t get my umbrella open. It smelled like old people, and every little noise I made echoed really loudly. I remember everyone in the pews turning to stare at me funny, but that could have been because I interrupted their service. You know, by jumping up and down and screaming that God was burning me.

Is the Lord’s Supper only for Christians? Whenever I ask this question I immediately remember the character of those that partook of the Last Supper with Jesus. They were certainly Jews, some better Jews than others, but Jesus shared this meal knowingly even with Judas. Or again consider the Emmaus Road encounter. Jesus shares this meal with those who had given up on his being the One to redeem Israel, who were leaving Jerusalem downcast and disappointed, and who were oblivious to the fact that it was Jesus who was speaking and sharing with them! There has to be a balance in the liturgy to help the congregation make a decision if they themselves are ready to partake of this Meal in a worthy manner (hence the 'ye who do truly and earnestly repent' clause), while at the same time joyfully welcoming all who are willing and ready and able to do so.

I suppose she only wanted what she couldn't have. Well, people were that way. To hell with people. The Catholic Church had an awfully good way of handling all that. Good advice, anyways. Not to think about it. Oh, it was swell advice. Try and take it sometime. Try and take it.

It appears that the paradigm of the modern Church has mainly been based on some fragments of the truth rather than the comprehensive totality of understanding God and His Kingdom

It doesn't matter what Church you belong to. If you don't believe in yourself you're Already Damned

It has been a great source of sadness to me to see two schools of thought within the evangelical church over many decades. Those who come glorying in manifestations of power sometimes seem dismissive of those whom they regard as “cold theologians.” I once heard a man speaking at a large conference say that theology was the enemy of the church and if only we could abandon doctrinal perspectives, the church would be a happier place. What tragic nonsense! We also see and hear those who love theological insight and savour the doctrines of Scripture expressing equally dismissive remarks about Christians who are enjoying God’s power, as though they were mere children preoccupied with experience. How I long for a recovery of true biblical Christianity where the apostle Paul, who wrote the book of Romans, also raised the dead! It seems that profound theology and great signs and wonders happily cohabited in Paul’s life and ministry.

I therefore used the last ten minutes of our classes to recite with them words from the Bible and verses from hymns, so that they would know them and the words would stay with them throughout their lives. The aim of my teaching was to bring to their hearts and thoughts the great truths of the Gospels so religion would have meaning in their lives and give them the strength to resist the irreligious forces that might assail them. I also tried to awaken in them a love for the Church, and a desire for that hour of spiritual peace to be found in the Sunday service. I taught them to respect traditional doctrines, but at the same time to hold fast to the saying of Paul that where the spirit of Christ is, there is freedom.

I tell my christian relatives that "churchianity" is the central reason the church is not teeming with young people. The hypocrisy within the church is not concealed from this growing, informed generation. The arrogance among church goers is unnerving, Jesus was such a humble individual to begin with, he did not discriminate.

It is cosmic treason for the church to possess the keys of the Kingdom and not to utilize them to set the captives free.

I thought that some of the hymns bespoke the true religion of the place. The people didn't really want to be saints of self-deprivation and hatred of the world. They knew that the world would sooner or later deprive them of all it had given them, but still they liked it. What they came together for was to acknowledge, just by coming, their losses and failures and sorrows, their need for comfort, their faith always needing to be greater, their wish (in spite of all words and acts to the contrary) to love one another and to forgive and be forgiven, their need for one another's help and company and divine gifts, their hope (and experience) of love surpassing death, their gratitude.

I thought I was looking at a building at first: that it was some kind of tent, as high as a country church, made of grey and pink canvas that flapped in the gusts of storm wind, in that orange sky: a lopsided canvas structure aged by weather and ripped by time. And then it turned and I saw its face...

It is interesting that Jesus encounters a person, personally, forgives him, transforms him adds Him into the Church - the Body of Christ, However today, Church is getting the other way around, she is raising up a believer in Church, feeding him up with the cup of her doctrine and then showing the person of Christ with the veil of concocted and diseased doctrines.

It is important to note that the lampstand in the tabernacle did not cast a broad light, illuminating everything in the tabernacle; the focus of its beam was specifically on the bread of presence. Likewise, the church is not called to illuminate everything -- its light should be concentrated on showing others who God is. For church leaders, our jobs are clear: we have to keep the wicks trimmed, the light burning, and the lampstand in its proper place. if the light begins to dim, we must immediately move into action. God's intention is for the church to be placed strategically in culture in order to show Himself to the world. Anytime the church becomes ineffective in its role to illuminate Christ, it must rekindle and reinvent itself around its core purpose.

It is interesting that Jesus encounters a person, personally, forgives him, transforms him adds Him into the Church - the Body of Christ, However today, Church is getting the other way around, she is raising up a believer in Church, feeding the cup of her doctrine and then showing the person of Christ in with the veil of concocted and diseased doctrines.

It is important that a distinction be made between the assembly as defined by the New Testament and churches as they are known today...Compared with the pattern of the assembly of believers (ekklesia) as described in the New Testament, institutional churches fall far short.

It is not the balance in your check book that makes life count. It is the investment one makes in the lives of others.

It is my trade," he said. "I work for the bean family, and every day there are deaths among the beans, mostly from thirst. They shrivel and die, they go blind in their one black eye, and I put them in one of these tiny coffins. Beans, you know, are beautifully shaped, like a new church, like modern architecture, like a planned city

It is not possible to understand the NT concept of the church if we overlook the numerous metaphors used to portray it. The church is Christ's body, a temple, a family, a royal priesthood, twelve tribes, the chosen race, Abraham's children, the new creation, the bride of Christ, and so on. Bible readers should be careful not to construct their theology of the church on a single metaphor.

It is often said, inside the Church and out of it, that there is something grotesque about lectures on the sexual life when delivered by those who have shunned it. Given the way that the Church forbids women to preach, this point is usually made about men. But given how much this Church allows the fanatical Mother Teresa to preach, it might be added that the call to go forth and multiply, and to take no thought for the morrow, sounds grotesque when uttered by an elderly virgin whose chief claim to reverence is that she ministers to the inevitable losers in this very lottery.

It is so easy and effortless for Christians to just join a church and follow its leadership and practices without seeking the Lord for personal discernment.

It is true that the church must be in many places and with many people, but it is the poor who will reveal to the church—dramatically and poignantly—the nature of its heart and mission.

It is the one terrible heresy of the church, that it has always been presenting something else than obedience as faith in Christ.

It is too easy to call the church political. The nature of fallen people is political. And they happen to make up the church. So the church is innately political. This cannot be helped. But it can be navigated if not always stomached.

It is useful to reflect that the word 'liturgy' did not originate in church or worship settings. In the Greek world it referred to publish service, what a citizen did for the community. As the church used the word in relation to worship, ti kept this 'public service' quality - working for the community on behalf of or following orders from God. As we worship God, revealed personally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in our Holy Scriptures, we are not doing something apart form or away from the non-Scripture=reading world; we do it for the world - bringing all creation and all history before God, presenting our bodies and all the beauties and needs of humankind before God in praise and intercession, penetrating and serving the world for whom Christ died in the strong name of the Trinity.

It is vitally important for local church leaders to keep in touch with the spiritual state of their members, to discuss their level of biblical knowledge, and to teach them how to study God’s Word and pray.

It is very difficult sometimes to keep awake, especially at church, but there is no difficulty at all about sleeping.

It is time to revive and recover the third article of the Creed; to live corporately and communally in a world of expressive individualism. . . . We need to show how the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies people one by one through the gospel, and then draws them into communion in his holy church.

It might seem daunting to a congregation to have to learn about pronouns, or to designate a bathroom gender-neutral, or to have difficult conversations about what it means to affirm LGBTQ+ identities. But transgender people are not a burden for Christianity, or for the church. They come bearing gifts!

It rains on everyone. It may be storming but there is a covering. Life may be challenging, but there is a covering. It may seem impossible, hopeless, doubtful, fear-ridden, and pain-laden, but there is a covering. There are other umbrellas, but only one is red with the blood of Jesus. We need to love Jesus more than the noise.

It's astonishing what a number of churches and idiots there are in the world.