Quotes About Congregations

If churches are to be healthy, then pastors and teachers must be committed to discovering the meaning of Scripture and allowing that meaning to drive the agenda with their congregations.

You have likely heard me describe the state of churches in North America. Nearly nine out of ten are either declining, or they are growing more slowly than the communities in which they are located. In simple terms, 90 percent of our churches are losing ground in their respective communities.

I am suggesting that congregations across America are weak because many of us church members have lost the biblical understanding of what it means to be a part of the body of Christ.

When congregations hold passive views of human responsibility, the evidence is that they are not growing. If some teaching claims to be the Gospel but does nothing in response, does not elicit any compassionate action, then it is surely not the Gospel. The fantasy of a gospel that does nothing is not the good news of the New Testament.

There are multitudes in our congregations who are just waiting while they ought to be acting. They must work, if they would have God work in them. There can be no religion without obedience.

there is a simple, straightforward way in which congregations of Jesus' people can, without exception, fulfill his call to be an ecclesia, his "called out" ones: a touch point between heaven and earth, where the healing of the Cross and the Resurrection can save the lost and grow the saved into the fullness of human beings in Christ.

For our Christian groups and their leaders, it means that there is a simple, straightforward way in which congregations of Jesus' people can, without exception, fulfill his call to be an ecclesia, his "called out" ones: a touch point between heaven and earth, where the healing of the Cross and the Resurrection can save the lost and grow the saved into the fullness of human beings in Christ.

They weren't telling their congregations that what they were preaching was Unitarianism; they were just omitting from their sermons and services anything that conflicted with Unitarianism, with the idea that if their congregations heard nothing that wasn't Unitarian they would just naturally become Unitarians.

I know that God our Father is in this work in great congregations . . . and in the smallest branch and the smallest congregation.

The Church, during the apostolic age, did not consist of isolated, independent congregations, but was one body, of which the separate churches were constituent members, each subject to all the rest, or to an authority which extended over all.

Some churches grow vast congregations, increase the variety and number of their programs, and build larger and larger buildings to accomplish their purposes—which they mistake for those of Christ. In reality, He may be pushed outside and left knocking at the door. How sad to think of Him returning to His Church at the end of the age and finding Himself persona non grata!

Religious diversity flourishes because the church is weak, because it is unsound in doctrine and practice. These are the same flaws that allow false believers to remain in our congregations. But because religious diversity flourishes, and because tolerance is considered a virtue, this same cultural trend that has been enabled by the church's disobedience also helps to expose and draw away some of the false believers in our congregations.

Most priests wish they were as righteous as they seem to most members of their congregations.

Christ must be sought, and will be found, in the congregations of his people and in the administration of his ordinances;

When it comes to the whole Bible, I believe we should not only be reading right through the Bible individually at least once a year – for clergy I'd say twice a year at least, and perhaps the gospels four times a year, and if this means reworking your personal schedules then fine, do it – but that we should make it possible for our congregations to try creative experiments for how to experience the whole Bible.

Several congregations had received permission to build churches before Danzig Mennonites were permitted to do so. Thus, in the village of Montau in the vicinity of Kulm, Mennonites were allowed to build their first church in the Vistula valley as early as 1586.8

Therefore hear, O nations, and learn, O congregations, what will happen to them.