Quotes About Church

The true church is not an organization controlled by the rules of men but a holy collection of living stones with Jesus Christ as the cornerstone.

Just because you have a church building doesn't necessarily mean Jesus is with you. He is not welcome in many churches today.

As for Rome, it did not bend one bit. When in Romania the liberal priest Andrea Agotha convened a "Congress" of some forty Catholic clergy in the town of Targu Mures on April 27, 1950 to discuss creating a "democratic" (pro-Communist Party) Church, Pope Pius XII immediately excommunicated them once he received the news in Rome.513

I sang in the choir for years, even though my family belonged to another church.

España no experimentó una clásica revolución burguesa en la que se rompieran las estructuras del Antiguo Régimen. El poder de la monarquía, de la nobleza terrateniente y de la Iglesia seguían más o menos intactos bien entrado el siglo XX.

Internet newsgroups and message boards on AOL are like colossal recovery support groups in the biggest church basement in the world.

If we are able to enter the church day and night and implore God to hear our prayers, how careful we should be to hear and grant the petitions of our neighbor in need. — St. John the Almoner

Frequent Mass attendance, then, is an effective weapon of our warfare.

The church is in God's keeping. We do not have the right to be anxious about it.We have our Lord's word that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

How I can I speak God's peace to them inside the church if I act scared when I walk past them outside?

Even worship is less important than Jesus. In fact, worship can become an idol in the church. Some Christians probably worship worship more than they worship Jesus. Some worship leaders probably worship worship-leading more than they worship Jesus. It was never meant to be an industry, a genre in Walmart, a karaoke show on Sunday. If you really want to lead worship, learn to wonder.

Some will tell you all you need is religion. They are wrong. You can go to church, mosque or synagogue ten times a day, pray hard and read the Scriptures as often as possible, give generous alms, and visit holy cites weekly. None of that can stop demons from rising in you, if you harbor jealousy or evil intentions toward your neighbour or fellow human.

Lord, save the Church from desiring to have pews, choirs, organs, or instrumental music, and a congregational ministry, like other heathen Churches around them!

I have placed the keys of the whole universal Church in your hands, and over that which I have redeemed by the spilling of my own blood, I placed you as my vicar.… I, however, who have given you such and so many things, do not find law or justice in your balance, and I depart from your tribunals despised and unavenged.41

Church is too often the most risky place to be spiritually honest.

The Lord's Supper teaches that] Rituals are good, and they are instituted and used by God to 'connect' his people with him. We learn through ritual that the church is not just made up of individuals, but is a corporate body. It is not just about personal salvation, but a group of people, the people of God, who are bound to one another and to the faithful through the generations. (page 263)

Zehr, Paul M. Biblical Criticism in the Life of the Church. Harrisonburg, VA: Herald, 1986.

Protestant church tradition developed over several centuries when Christians were not yet forced, by virtue of the culminating evidence, to see the Bible in its ancient context.

The findings of the past 150 years have made extrabiblical evidence an unavoidable conversation partner. The result is that, as perhaps never before in the history of the church, we can see how truly provisional and incomplete certain dimensions of our understanding of Scripture can be. On the other hand, we are encouraged to encounter the depth and riches of God's revelation and to rely more and more on God's Spirit, who speaks to the church in Scripture.

Feel free to call this a faith crisis. It's hard to imagine talking like this in church. Letting your guard down and bearing your soul with this degree of raw honesty is risky. You might find yourself in the middle of a protect-you-from-atheism intervention prayer phone chain faster than you can say "Bill Maher." Or you might be judged as a weak or uncommitted Christian and shunned.

If I were king of Christianity, after limiting church services to forty-five minutes and sermons to ten, as well as outlawing church "share time" altogether, I would proclaim a kingdom-wide decree that, at least for a while until we get it, "believe" should be stricken from all of our Bibles and replaced with trust.

When Christians feel crushed by such "people of God," faith is exposed as something that just doesn't work here and now. And if something doesn't work, intellectual arguments for staying in the faith lose their appeal over time. Why bother?

So he held his services in the hall, and never complained when only thirty or forty people turned up. The church must be a focal point for unity, a place where people could come together and share their faith, not a baron demanding tribute.

I feel the same way about solitude as some people feel about the blessing of the church. It's the light of grace for me. I never close my door behind me without the awareness that I am carrying out an act of mercy toward myself.