Quotes About Church

Even though most people coming to a church for the first time cannot articulate this verse, they are probably thinking something similar to what James and John said to Jesus, "Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. 'Teacher, ' they said, 'we want you to do for us whatever we ask'" (Mark 10:35 NIV, emphasis added). Each week people show up telling the church, many times, "We want you to do for us whatever we ask.

In his book Vision America, Aubrey Malphurs asserted that much of the perceived church growth in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s was actually due primarily to the redistribution of believers, not genuine church growth. He stated, "The problems of the church in the 1980s carry over into the 1990s. The church as a whole continues to experience decline and the unchurched increase."5

The idea that spiritual growth begins with discomfort is a fact many church members and church leaders have been unwilling or unable to embrace.

Being missional means moving intentionally beyond our church preferences, making missional decisions rather than preferential decisions.

If they do what missionaries do—study and learn language, become part of culture, proclaim the Good News, be the presence of Christ, and contextualize biblical life and church for that culture—they are missional churches.

Just as the true fruit of an apple tree is not an apple, but another tree; the true fruit of a small group is not a new Christian, but another group; the true fruit of a church is not a new group, but a new church; the true fruit of a leader is not a follower, but a new leader; the true fruit of an evangelist is not a convert, but new evangelists. Whenever this principle is understood and applied, the results are dramatic.

Our interests, goals, and ambitions must be centered on the all-embracing task the gospel sets before us. Paul describes this in Romans 15:20: "My ambition has always been to preach the Good News where the name of Christ has never been heard, rather than where a church has already been started by someone else

We believe the church's purpose is to glorify God, not to make people happy. The church does not exist for believers or unbelievers; it exists for God's glory, for the equipping of believers, and the church is God's missionary in the world.

When the church protects the powerful at the expense of the victim, we have compromised. And in the end, these compromises add up and convince the world that the church is not a community for the broken in search of healing but just another human institution that puts expediency above righteousness and justice.

It is not enough for us to read this portion of the Bible and picture the Apostles Paul and Peter along with the church simply doing their best to be nice people. These letters reveal the subversive nature of God's kingdom at work among the empires of humanity. God set in motion a rebellion against the rebellions of men.

Religion should be about your relationship with God, not what the church says you can and can't do.

When branches are pruned, more of the life of the vine goes into producing the fruit. Without pruning, each year more and more of the sap of the vine goes into sustaining more and more branches and leaves, and each year the fruit is a bit smaller than it was last year. Just as God prunes our lives, removing those good things that bore fruit in the previous season of our lives so all of our energy can be poured into new areas of growth, God does the same thing in the church.

According to the astronomical figure drawn above, you will see fully that it shows that the theft of the sacred objects has been perpetrated with the collusion of two of your brothers of the Church—indeed, ones who have previously extended to you private counsel on several occasions as to what had befallen your silver.

I have taken this step because I want the discipline, the fire and the authority of the Church. I am hopelessly unworthy of it, but I hope to become worthy.

Es el celo del amor de Dios en Cristo lo que reivindica a la iglesia como la novia del Señor.

Seminary is for men who are seriously considering the ministry; it is a place where a man may test his gifts and calling in the service of the Word...Uncertainty about a call to the ministry may indicate with certainty a call to theological training. Even when God does not call a man to pastoral work, he often leads through seminary study to other ministries of teaching and to informed leadership in the work of the church.

Private soul-searching is not enough to determine your call to the ministry. The judgment of the people of God must be sought; long before the time when it must be given formally it should be sought informally.

The Church says: The body is a sin. Science says: The body is a machine. Advertising says: The body is a business. The body says: I am a fiesta.

In social institutions, the whole is always less than the sum of its parts. There will never be a state as good as its people, or a church worthy of its congregation, or a university equal to its faculty and students.

As we face a new era of world history, there is an urgent need for the true Church of Jesus Christ, the Body of Christ, to be about the business God has called us to, the work of ministry. And this is a work that every believer is called to be actively involved in.

The Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when . . . he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal church is, by the divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer [Jesus] wills that His church should be endowed.

Not all religion is to be found in the church, any more than all knowledge is found in the classroom.

For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?

Welcome to the Church of the Holy Cabbage. Lettuce pray.