Quotes About Church

Our studies consistently show a large majority of people leave their church's service without feeling as though they have connected with God. If those who regularly attend depart with such disappointment and confusion, what must it be like for those who are new to the church adventure?

Half of all regular church-going adults admit that they have not experienced God's presence at any time during the past year. The younger the adult, the more likely they are to state that God is a distant, impersonal reality for them. And even among those who say God's presence was evident to them, most of them say that happened only one or two times throughout the course of the year.

Consequently, if the church is going to leave a permanent mark on the community through a growing body of changed lives, it must constantly expand its leadership capacity, which entails both an increased number of leaders and an enhanced quality of leaders. Also

Despite all the opinions churchless (and churched) people offer about musical styles, architecture, sound systems, creativity, intellectualism, and the menu of programs provided by churches, none of these is the main attraction. These elements are nice sideshows, but people don't come to church for the carnival rides. They come to meet God. People complain about the uncomfortable seats and stale popcorn when center stage is empty of the main event.

Are you satisfied with the nature of your church today but simply want your church to be bigger?

What would success look like if the church were to be comprised of true followers of Christ?

A visionary pastor is a successful pastor.

Whom should you pursue? That question can be answered only after your church has done the hard work of getting to know who the unchurched are in your community. Your approach will vary depending on whether you have a substantial born-again churchless segment in your neighborhood or more people who are purely unchurched—that is, those with no background of church involvement. Your goal in both cases is to connect with the unchurched around you, but the way you approach them will differ.

What I'd say about that is that we must respect homosexuals in the church. I've got many homosexual friends, the issue is not in any way a homophobic reaction on my part.

I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. ... These two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.

I don't know how you feel, but I'm pretty sick of church people. You know what they ought to do with churches? Tax them. If holy people are so interested in politics, government, and public policy, let them pay the price of admission like everybody else. The Catholic Church alone could wipe out the national debt if all you did was tax their real estate.

I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. ... These two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.

However, in view of the verb used, it appears that the realm of death is the aggressor, attacking the church 49 The meaning then would be that when men and women have been brought into the salvation of the Kingdom of God through the mission of the church, the gates of death will be unable to prevail in their effort to swallow them up.

One of the most notable features in this eschatological people is that of fellowship (koin?nia).44 Fellowship was one of the distinctive marks of the Jerusalem church (Acts 2:42). This is something more than human fellowship or the pleasure people of like mind find in each other's presence. It is more than a fellowship in a common religion. It is an eschatological creation of the Holy Spirit.

The Kingdom is God's reign and the realm in which the blessings of his reign are experienced; the church is the fellowship of those who have experienced God's reign and entered into the enjoyment of its blessings. The Kingdom creates the church, works through the church, and is proclaimed in the world by the church.

The local church is not part of the church but is the church in its local expression.

The renewal of the new person6 does not designate gradual renewal of the character, but that the new humanity, already existing in Christ, is progressively actualized in the Christian church.

The church was an eschatological congregation, not because it had experienced the blessings of the messianic age but because it was the people designated for the future eschatological age.

The church is but the result of the coming of God's Kingdom into the world by the mission of Jesus Christ.

Fullness" (pl?r?ma) has two different meanings. Some take it to mean that the church completes Christ — fills him up. However, it is easier to take it to mean that the church as the body of Christ is filled with his life and power,54 which are to work through Christ in the world. The church is a "partaker of all that He owns and is for the purpose of continuing his work."55

Thus entrance into the Kingdom means participation in the church; but entrance into the church is not necessarily synonymous with entrance into the Kingdom.38

Here we find an extension of the theology of discipleship, that it will be the mission of the church to witness to the gospel of the Kingdom in the world. Israel is no longer the witness to God's Kingdom; the church has taken her place. Therefore K. E. Skydsgaard has said that the history of the Kingdom of God has become the history of Christian missions.

The church is in fact the true Israel of God.

Furthermore, unless Jesus had some interpretation for his own death, it is difficult to explain how the theology of atonement arose in the early church. Long ago, Schweitzer criticized Wrede's nonmessianic theory on the grounds that resurrection would never constitute Jesus as Messiah in the mind of the church,5 and the validity of this criticism still stands.