Quotes About Church

The church today has been compared to a football game with twenty-two people on the field in desperate need of rest, and fifty thousand people in the stands in desperate need of exercise.

It has been broadly observed that the first Reformation of the early 1500s placed the Bible in the hands of the people and that the Second Reformation will place the ministry in the hands of the people.

The New Testament pictures the church as an every-member ministry. The "priesthood of all believers" is not just a Reformation watchword but a biblical ideal.

Bill Hull has prophetically written, "The crisis at the heart of the church is a crisis of product.

The life of Jesus is still being manifest among people, but now no longer through an individual physical body, limited to one place on earth, but through a complex, corporate body called the church.

The implication is that the church is not an optional afterthought for those who name Christ as their Lord. The church is central to God's plan of salvation.

The concern this raises, as Berding highlights, is that there is a famine of God's Word even in the church; we are starving ourselves to death. Instead of following the admonition to meditate on God's law day and night (Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:2; 119:97), we take a haphazard approach to internalizing the Word in our lives.

The Scriptures picture the church as an essential, chosen organism in whom Christ dwells; the reality is that people view the church as an optional institution, unnecessary for discipleship.

The problem in our culture . . . isn't the abortionists. It isn't the pornographers or drug dealers or criminals. It is the undisciplined, undiscipled, disobedient, and Biblically ignorant Church of Jesus Christ."[7]

Instead of equipping the saints to do the work of ministry, those in pastoral leadership do it themselves.

Essential Christianity is a definable concept. A thread of its demonstrable presence can be pinpointed in every generation from the time of Christ to the present. This is the fundamental backdrop for church history. If not, then Jesus lied. …teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:20)

What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use—men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men—men of prayer.1

In the words of E.M. Bounds in his book, Power Through Prayer: What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use—men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men—men of prayer.

Close examination of the evidence shows that the poor were being included in private education, and only those who did not want to go to school were missing out. There was no need for public school except as a tool to undermine the church's influence in education.

It is important to remember, however, that baptism is not merely a sign of God's grace-it is also a seal. Baptism does not simply signify what Christ has done, nor does it only demonstrate the parents' devotion. Baptism is also God's own continuing, visible pledge to his church that he will fulfill his covenant promises to those who place their faith in him.

Baptism did replace circumcision as a Gentile sign of entrance into the Church, as a matter of fact. Moreover, it is a necessary act for believing Jews in addition to circumcision (Acts 21:21, 1 Cor. 7:18). But, it doesn't exactly replace circumcision for Jews, especially in that transitional era.

The evangelical church in America has, to a large extent, been co-opted by an American, religious version of the kingdom of the world. We have come to trust the power of the sword more than the power of the cross. We have become intoxicated with the Constantinian, nationalistic, violent mindset of imperialistic Christendom.5

Do you trust threats, judgment, shame, or social pressure (even in church!) to change people, or do you trust the Holy Spirit working in the people's hearts and using Christlike acts of love to bring about change? The kingdom of God consists of all those who choose the latter rather than the former and who act accordingly.

if a man were an avowed communist, would our position be to excommunicate him or disqualify him for any position in the Church,

Seeking to boost the number of young believers, the Church has successfully lobbied to make classes about Russian Orthodoxy mandatory in state schools.

no matter how liberal a church may seem, Christian dogma still revolves around an ancient, paternalistic image of God the Father, who quite frankly isn't much more believable than the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus.

The irony of having had such a secular upbringing is that I now live in Texas. Oh, the irony. Here in Texas, it is not only acceptable to go to church and have the mythic belief structure of an eleven-year-old—no, we are considered the odd ones out because we don't go to church... at least that was how it seemed to us in the beginning.

For a number of people, church attendance seems to be primarily a social affair, the act of meeting other people outside of the pressures of work. For others it is pure business/politics. I get it. It's important to have access to a community like the one a church provides.

Obviously, not everyone in Texas attends church for purely social or nostalgic reasons. There are still plenty of people here who feel the need to advertise their allegiance to God by telling me that they are good Christians, by continuously posting prayer pictures of Jesus on Facebook, or by telling me that no matter how ethically I live, I will surely go to Hell if I don't accept Jesus Christ into my heart.