Quotes About Church

Children raised in a couple-centered home more fully understand the gospel of Jesus Christ. God's love manifested in marriage speaks more to kids than any Sunday school lesson or sermon. This truth is the essence of Ephesians 5:25. Marriage is used as a word picture for God's love for the church. What is your marriage teaching your kids about Jesus?

The Christian canon consists of two different, separate voices, indeed of two different choirs of voices. The Old Testament is the voice of Israel, the New that of the church. But beyond this, the voice of the New Testament is largely that of a transformed Old Testament which is now understood in the light of the gospel.

The role of the canon as scripture of the church and vehicle for its actualization through the Spirit is to provide an opening and a check to continually new figurative applications of its apostolic content as it extends the original meaning to the changing circumstances of the community of faith (cf. Frei, Eclipse, 2–16). These figurative applications are not held in isolation from its plain sense, but an extension of the one story of God's purpose in Jesus Christ.

Not all music should be functional. Any culture, and all cultural levels, need music that challenges conventions and pushes the boundaries. To say that church music is a functional art does not mean that art music and popular music are superior or inferior to it. It means only that church music cannot be free art, an end in itself. "It is art brought to the cross, art which is dedicated to the service of God and the edifying of the church." 85

To say that church music is a functional art means, on the contrary, that it is composed, played, and sung " to serve the purposes of God , particularly in the church's expression of its worship, its fellowship, and its mission." 86

this is a good rule of thumb: if you can't hear the congregation, you are probably too loud

They couldn't reach the cord to make it stop & so it flew about scaring the older ladies just out of church. It left behind a trail of wet feathers & a renewed sense of the presence of evil among the faithful. Once they found out who started it, everyone settled down & went back to hating the usual stuff.

All believers have gifts to use in service to Him. But first He must work on your character. As you get to know the Lord and grow and mature in your faith, you will discover that calling." -Brain Brodersen-The Spirit, the church, and the world

It is undoubtedly true that Galileo didn't intend to challenge the very theological foundations of the Church of Rome by observing the Moon through a telescope. But scientific discoveries, however innocuous they may seem at first sight, have a way of undermining those who don't much care for facts. Reality catches up with everyone eventually. With

The Church has little idea how unorthodox it is at any given moment. If a church can't yet be perfectly orthodox, it can, with the Holy Spirit's help and by the grace of God, be perpetually reformable.

They were common law wed, no preachers involved. You can guess how that set with the more churchy types. Which was probably most of them. Still is. They pick and choose what suits them. 'A man shall not lay with another man,' they're good about latching on to parts like that. But 'Judge not, lest ye be judged,' that goes in one ear and out the other.

In the eighth century, the Catholic Church created a huge market for salted cod and herring by allowing the devout to consume fish on Fridays, the day of Christ's crucifixion, during the forty days of Lent and on major feast days.

It is like the indictment of the prophets: I hate your solemn assemblies, because you neglect the poor.5 If we really believe Scripture, then we have to face the very real possibility that our experience of church, where the majority of people have neglected the poor and have refused to make disciples, might mean the withdrawing of the tangible presence of God from our gatherings.

What makes the church truly unique in the life of the people of God is that we are now meant to hold our place in the wall together, in teams of people who worship like monks, live like family, and engage the world like missionaries. But what happens when the church itself goes astray? When the church becomes more of a club than the hands and feet of Jesus? We are called to examine our hearts and test our ways. It is time also to look at the way we do church.

Any place where we can go consistently and remain anonymous is not a witnessing church.

When there are large sums of money, method, and institutional expectation on our shoulders, we are tempted to cut the corner of mission and simply gather Christians. If we can conceive of the church as something smaller and simpler, we can plant mission with hope and not anxiety.

ABOUT PHILIPPIANS What joy and glory came out of Paul's prison cell! Most of us would be thinking of ourselves and how we could get out; but Paul wanted to send to the Philippian church the revelation of joy!

The house of the Lord doesn't filter out the flock" - Wanda Lovell

I'm a Christian. I go to church when I can. I was raised Baptist. I went to a Lutheran school. I'm a nondenominational practicing Christian. I have a lot of faith.

I could hear the exasperation in her voice, so beautiful and familiar, but sad, too, like hearing church bells right before your funeral.

You can't use strong-arm tactics against the Church without strengthening it. It's always been that way. Under persecution a man looks at his faith to see if it's worth fighting for, and this is a scrutiny Christianity can always withstand. The real danger comes with an indirect attack, where a person is lured away from the Church before he has a chance to become strong.

I urged the German Christians to become missionaries; because it has been my experience that a missionary church is an alive church. At

a missionary church is an alive church.

The work of the church is not survival. She exists to fulfill the Great Commission. Her work is making disciples of all nations.