Best 3954 quotes in «church quotes» category

Don't worry , when everyone looks down on you. God will lift you up to the level they think you don't deserve. 1 Samuel 16:6-7

Dost thou renounce Satan, and all his Angels, and all his works, and all his services, and all his pride?" ... The first act of the Christian life is a renunciation, a challenge. No one can be Christ's until he has, first, faced evil, and then become ready to fight it. How far is this spirit from the way in which we often proclaim, or to use a more modern term, "sell" Christianity today! ... How could we then speak of "fight" when the very set-up of our churches must, by definition, convey the idea of softness, comfort, peace? ... One does not see very well where and how "fight" would fit into the weekly bulletin of a suburban parish, among all kings of counseling sessions, bake sales, and "young adult" get-togethers. ... "Dost thou unite thyself unto Christ?

Down through the centuries the church has contributed more than any other single agency in lifting social standards to new heights.

Do you think God truly meant for us to keep Him locked in the church? Is He our Sunday pocket watch we only pull out for weddings and funerals and church services? He wishes for us to think about Him wherever we are. And a voice singing His praises at a ball is far less irreverent than a stone-cold heart sitting in a pew on Sunday morning.

Duke If you are poor, Are you not blessed in that? Why, poverty Is one of the Christian virtues, [Turns to the Cardinal.] Is it not? I know, Lord Cardinal, you have great revenues, Rich abbey-lands, and tithes, and large estates For preaching voluntary poverty.

During these hard times in the world we should always remember to keep our families and friends close.

Dysfunction comes when we intertwine the church and God and view them as one.

Dvě události zasluhují zvláštní zmínky. Předně, že naši katolíci postupovali svorně se svobodomyslnými a se socialisty; kdo zná poměr obou směrů v době dřívější, uzná s radostí jednotící sílu osvobozenského hnutí. Katolíci už rok před tím (18. listopadu) usnesli se v Chicagu na memorandu, které bylo určeno papeži Benediktu XV. ; bylo odevzdáno papežskému delegátovi, který počin 'Národního Svazu Českých Katolíků' schválil a slíbil doručit memorandum papeži. V memorandu žádána samostatnost Čechoslovanů a osvobození národa československého v zemích historických a na Slovensku. Sám jsem se zúčastnil katolického sjezdu ve Washingtoně dne 20. června. Objasnil jsem proti starým výtkám své náboženské stanovisko, zejména, jak a proč jsem se stal příkrým odpůrcem toho katolicismu politického, jaký se p%usobením Habsburků vyvinul v Rakousku a Uhersku. Vyslovil jsem se pro rozluku státu a církve podle vzoru amerického. Právě američní katolíci chápali, že nezávislost církve na státu nijak není církvi na závadu. Slíbil jsem, že se přičiním o rozluku bez boje; pokud by při této rozluce šlo o úpravu církevních statků, odmítl jsem konfiskaci. Když se výkonný výbor Národního Svazu Českých Katolíků v Americe usnesl 25. října 1918 vyslat své zástupce do Československé republiky, aby o podstatě rozluky poučili duchovenstvo i katolický lid, uvítal jsem tento ämysl velmi rád (dopisem z 15. listopadu). Dodávám ještě, že také Sdruženie Slovenských Katolíkov v Amerike doporučilo úpravu poměru církve k státu ve smyslu rozluky americké, ovšem se zřetelem na poměry slovenské (ve Wilkes Barre 27. listopadu).

Each of us ought to be so happy that Jesus found us and saved us, that we are running to find the next person who needs to be introduced to Him. That's what church is, a community of rescued people celebrating grace, eager to spread the good news of grace and bring other people to the party.

Election has nothing to do with the eternal salvation of individuals but refers instead to God's way of saving nations. It was a major mistake of the Reformation to have decided to follow Augustine in this matter, taking election to refer to grace and salvation. It manages to make bad news out of good news. It casts a deep shadow over the character of God. At it worst, it can lead to awful consequences in terms of pride, arrogance, superiority, and intolerance as the ideology of election takes hold. It causes the church to become, not a sign of the unity of humanity in the love of God, but the sign of favorites in the midst of the enemies of God.

Emotional pain is a terrible thing to endure, but the solution is not anything unbiblical.

España daba vueltas en círculos desde los días de los Reyes Católicos: guerras, dictaduras, reyes engendrando hijos idiotas con primas, tías y medio hermanas, la Iglesia, el perpetuo anclaje en el pasado, los militares, más guerras, más curas, más incultura...

Even as a man just recovering from illness walks only so far as he is obliged to go, with a slow and weary step, so the converted sinner journeys along as far as God commands him but slowly and wearily, until he attains a spirit of true devotion, and then, like a sound man, he not only gets along, but he runs and leaps in the way of God's Commands, and hastens gladly along the paths of heavenly counsels and inspirations.

Even if you are completely busy at work, you should still have a constant ministry in the church

Even in way we function as a church in the way we approach success, it is often driven by notion of pagan agendas. The bride of Christ has been affected for the stands that she takes and we have taken the consumeristic culture influencing the mind of the redeem.

Everybody gets to play.

Even those who want to go to heaven would rather kill than be killed.

Except... what Jesus said was: "I will build My church," not you. The verse is not a prediction, it is a proclamation of the Lord of the Earth, who never once talked of "children in subjection." or "wives be grave... sober, faithful in all things." In fact, reading the New Testament from the Gospels into Paul's letters, is like watching the Wizard of Oz backwards -- going from a world of color and amazement, into a land of black-and-white with insane devout women trying to kill your dog. -- editorial 2014

Every Sunday behind bibles, virgins, soldiers tight against me, longing, and my pelvis rubbing gods' to the big black woman voices. Soldiers tight against me, longing, all that rising, sitting, kneeling to the big black woman voices, spirits warming, tensing, folding, then all that rising, sitting, kneeling like some kind of dance, a mating, spirits warming, tensing, folding and god went “Shhhhh” between my thighs –

Faith UP! Your purpose is GREATER than all your PROBLEMS.

Father, help me focus on my strengths and trust others to fill the gaps of my weaknesses” Every leader knows the skills in which they excel. They also are aware of those tasks that they maintain a certain level of competence along with those duties they struggle in accomplishing. In my experience there are "want to’s" and the "have to’s" of leadership. The "want to’s" energize a leader and the "have to’s" zap the leader’s creativity and time. The quicker a leader can find those around them that will fill the gaps of their weaknesses, the more effective they will be in achieving God’s mission.

Family is the one human institution we have no choice over. We get in simply by being born, and as a result we are involuntarily thrown together with a menagerie of strange and unlike people. Church calls for another step: to voluntarily choose to band together with a strange menagerie because of a common bond in Jesus Christ. I have found that such a community more resembles a family than any other human institution. Henri Nouwen once defined a community as “a place where the person you least want to live with always lives.” His definition applies equally to the group that gathers each Thanksgiving and the group that congregates each Sunday morning. (p. 64-65, Church: Why Bother?)

Fat Charlie wondered what Rosie's mother would usually hear in a church. Probably just cries of "Back! Foul best of Hell!" followed by gasps of "Is it alive?" and a nervous inquiry as to whether anybody had remembered to bring the stakes and hammers.

Fear not, brothers and sisters, God, who is full of grace and abounding in steadfast love, meets us in our sin and transforms us for God's glory and the healing of God's world. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, your sins are forgiven, be now at peace.

For centuries after Christ, the church and other religions that use cruciform symbols have misrepresented the physical nature of Christ's death with a satanic symbol (cross), and a pagan idol (corpus). This secret has been concealed by the church for centuries after Christ.

Fight the good fight, not the bad one.

Finally, it is wrong to say that "nothing" is more basic to the identity of the church than suffering. Nothing is more basic to the identity of the institutional church than the preaching of the gospel, the correct administration of the sacraments, and the worship of God in Spirit and in truth (Westminster Confession of Faith, 25.4). Nothing is more basic to the identity of the individual Christian than faith, hope, obedience, and love, the fruit of the Spirit (cf. 1 Cor. 13:4-13; Gal. 5:22-24; 1 John 2:3; 3:10, 24; 4:7-21; 5:1-3).

Finally, the work of the minister tended to be judged by his success in a single area - the saving of souls in measurable numbers. The local minister was judged either by his charismatic powers or by his ability to prepare his congregation for the preaching of some itinerant ministerial charmer who would really awaken its members. The 'star' system prevailed in religion before it reached the theater. As the evangelical impulse became more widespread and more dominant, the selection and training of ministers was increasingly shaped by the revivalist criterion of ministerial merit. The Puritan ideal of the minister as an intellectual and educational leader was steadily weakened in the face of the evangelical ideal of the minister as a popular crusader and exhorter. Theological education itself became more instrumental. Simple dogmatic formulations were considered sufficient. In considerable measure the churches withdrew from intellectual encounters with the secular world, gave up the idea that religion is a part of the whole life of intellectual experience, and often abandoned the field of rational studies on the assumption that they were the natural province of science alone. By 1853 an outstanding clergyman complained that there was 'an impression, somewhat general, that an intellectual clergyman is deficient in piety, and that an eminently pious minister is deficient in intellect.

For Christians to influence the world with the truth of God's Word requires the recovery of the great Reformation doctrine of vocation. Christians are called to God's service not only in church professions but also in every secular calling. The task of restoring truth to the culture depends largely on our laypeople. To bring back truth, on a practical level, the church must encourage Christians to be not merely consumers of culture but makers of culture. The church needs to cultivate Christian artists, musicians, novelists, filmmakers, journalists, attorneys, teachers, scientists, business executives, and the like, teaching its laypeople the sense in which every secular vocation-including, above all, the callings of husband, wife, and parent--is a sphere of Christian ministry, a way of serving God and neighbor that is grounded in God's truth. Christian laypeople must be encouraged to be leaders in their fields, rather than eager-to-please followers, working from the assumptions of their biblical worldview, not the vapid clichés of pop culture.

For church buildings not to be enough is to build and equip church members to send them out

For irrelevancy to be cancelled in the church, let kingdom priority and pursuit be restored

Fewer than half of churchgoers, including born-again Christians, felt strongly that their church demonstrates unconditional love.

For better of for worse the church in the West bought modernity's claims. We were baptized in its story (even though it said it did not have one) and accepted its categories and definitions. But somewhere along the way we also began to believe that the ways in which we accessed knowledge about God or Jesus or the Spirit or Christianity were those things themselves.

Forgiveness doesn’t change the facts, only our spiritual disposition toward these facts.

For his own unfathomable reasons, God chooses to disguise himself when he comes to this planet, and there have been few disguises better than the church.

For the church, the many abuses of human life, liberty, and dignity are a heartfelt suffering. The church, entrusted with the earth’s glory, believes that in each person is the Creator’s image and that everyone who tramples it offends God. As holy defender of God’s rights and of his images, the church must cry out. It takes as spittle in its face, as lashes on its back, as the cross in its passion, all that human beings suffer, even though they be unbelievers. They suffer as God’s images. There is no dichotomy between man and God’s image. Whoever tortures a human being, whoever abuses a human being, whoever outrages a human being abuses God’s image, and the church takes as its own that cross, that martyrdom.

For now, it is enough to face the reality that it is possible, as individual Christians and also in our churches, to be doing well in many areas, and yet still miss what is perhaps the most urgent matter on the agenda of God in our generation, the task of reaching men and women everywhere with the knowledge of salvation in Jesus Christ.

For the Church, the option for the poor is primarily a theological category rather than a cultural, sociological, political, or philosophical one. God shows the poor "his first mercy." This divine preference has consequences for the faith life of all Christians, because we are called to have "this mind...which was in Jesus Christ" (Phil. 2:5). Inspired by this, the Church has made an option for the poor, which is understood as a "special form of primacy in the exercise of Christian charity, to which the whole tradition of the Church bears witness." This option - as Benedict XVI has taught - "is implicit in our Christian faith in a God who became poor for us, so as to enrich us with his poverty." This is why I want a Church that is poor and for the poor. They have much to teach us. Not only do they share in the sensus fidei, but in their difficulties they know the suffering Christ. We need to let ourselves be evangelized by them. The new evangelization is an invitation to acknowledge the saving power at work in their lives and to put them at the center of the Church's pilgrim way. We are called to find Christ in them, to lend our voice to their causes, but also to be their friends, to listen to them, to speak for them, and to embrace the mysterious wisdom that God wishes to share with us through them.

For the Church of Sweden, the Church of England, the German Lutheran Church and many other branches of European Christianity, the message of the religion has become a form of left-wing politics, diversity action and social welfare projects.

For those he has ignored, he allows them this. He allows them God, their only ally. Places to worship, but no one to teach.

For too long, many in the Church have argued that unity in the body of Christ across ethnic and class lines is a separate issue from the gospel. There has been the suggestion that we can be reconciled to God without being reconciled to our brothers and sisters in Christ. Scripture doesn’t bear that out. We only need to examine what happened when the Church was birthed to see exactly how God intends for this issue of reconciliation within the body of Christ to fall out (p. 33).

(from chapter 29, "Write in a Book What You See') "The phrase that gave us focus was 'a long obedience in the same direction.' (Nietzsche) ...Early on in my reading I came upon this sentence: 'The essential thing in heaven and earth is...that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run something that has made life worth living.' That struck me as a text I could live with. I saw myself assigned to give witness to the sheer liveability of the Christian life that everything in scripture and Jesus was here to be lived. In the mess of work and sin, of families and neighborhoods, my task was to pray and give direction and encourage that lived quality of the gospel - patiently, locally, and personally. Patiently: I would stay with those people; there are no quick or easy ways to do this. Locally: I would embrace the conditions of this place - economics, weather, culture, schools, whatever - so that there would be nothing abstract or piously idealized about what I was doing. Personally: I would know them, know their names, know their homes, know their families, know their work - but I would not pry. I would not treat them as a cause or a project. I would treat them with dignity. Preaching, of course, is part of it, teaching is part of it, administering a congregation as a community of faith is part of it. But the overall context of my particular assignment in the pastoral vocation, as much as I am able to do it, is to see to it that these men and women in my congregation become aware of the possibilities and the promise of living out in personal and local detail what is involved in following Jesus, and be companion to them as we do it together.

Friends, the light has come to the earth. We now have no right any longer to be in any form of darkness, especially in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

From a medical standpoint, the third and the most probable explanation is that Jesus was indeed dead, and what his disciples experienced were mere hallucinations evoked by the grief over the loss of their beloved teacher. It is clinically known as “Post-Bereavement Hallucinations Experiences” or PBHE.

Freedom for the Church comes from the necessity of the Word of God. Otherwise, it becomes arbitrariness and ends in a great many new ties.

(from chapter 24, "Heather-scented Theology") "...I was more than ever what I had been becoming for a long time - a contemplative pastor. In these early years when I was becoming a pastor, I needed a pastor. Some deep and cultivated pastoral instinct in Ian responded: he became my pastor without making me a project, without giving me advice, without smothering me with his concerns... I learned, without being aware that I was learning of the immense freedom that comes in pastoral relationships that are structured by prayer and ritual and let everything else happen more or less spontaneously. The competitiveness didn't exactly leave me, but it developed a root system that didn't depend on artificial stimulants or chemical additives - like 'start another building campaign.

Furthermore, unlike so many of his evangelical contemporaries he did not hold the view that the various inter-denominational youth movements represented the most hopeful field of labour; indeed his doctrine of the church left him with little sympathy for that attitude.

God allows problem to come so that the church can discover and declare Her position

Get plugged in at your church. Find a way to invest yourself. Let's change the church's problem from 'Where do we find the help we need?' to 'What do we do with all the help we have?' The revolution begins now; and it starts with you.

Gnosticism is undeniably pre-Christian, with both Jewish and gentile roots. The wisdom of Solomon already contained Gnostic elements and prototypes for the Jesus of the Gospels...God stops being the Lord of righteous deed and becomes the Good One...A clear pre-Christian Gnosticism can be distilled from the epistles of Paul. Paul is recklessly misunderstood by those who try to read anything Historical Jesus-ish into it. The conversion of Paul in the Acts of the Apostles is a mere forgery from various Tanakh passages... [The epistles] are from Christian mystics of the middle of the second century. Paul is thus the strongest witness against the Historical Jesus hypothesis...John's Gnostic origin is more evident than that of the synoptics. Its acceptance proves that even the Church wasn't concerned with historical facts at all.