Quotes About Congregation

God is not with the stronger battalions but with the small host of the praying, watchful congregation. God's strength is powerful in the weak.

It has been well and truly said that in the exoteric church the ceremony is performed by one person for the benefit of the congregation; but in the Lodge the ceremony is performed by the congregation for the benefit of one person.

The test of a preacher is that his congregation goes away saying, not "What a lovely sermon!" but "I will do something."

It is often the parishioners, the men and women in the pews, who set the tone.

Whenever pastors assume people in their congregation know certain things, they miss opportunities to teach. If a pastor makes assumptions year after year, then a whole generation has never heard [that truth] for the first time. If we assume too much, we communicate too little.

In 1522, William Tyndale began translating the Greek New Testament into English. Tyndale had the audacity to actually translate the term ekklesia rather than superimpose the widely accepted German term kirche. Instead of church, he used the term congregation. If that wasn't offensive enough, the Greek text led him to use elder instead of priest and repent instead of do penance.11

They will be like shadows, they will be like wraiths, gray members of a congregation of nightmare; hark! his long wavering howl . . . an aria of fear made audible. The wolfsong is the sound of the rending you will suffer, in itself a murdering.

If it came to saving the life of one priest or sacrificing the life of an entire congregation, the church would save the life of the priest. Which is backwards, of course.

As a preacher, my charge is to proclaim the message of the Scriptures. To help the people in my congregation become a people of the book. I love getting to do this.

Not one of the orthodox ministers dare preach what he thinks if he knows a majority of his congregation think otherwise. He knows that every member of his church stands guard over his brain with a creed, like a club, in his hand. He knows that he is not expected to search after the truth, but that he is employed to defend the creed. Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment.

But in every church there are people who, for reasons which seem sufficient to them, do not approve of their pastor and seek to harry him and bully him into some condition pleasing to themselves. The democracy which the Reformation brought into the Christian Church rages in their bosoms like a fire; they would deny that they regard their clergyman as their spiritual hired hand, whom they boss and oversee for his own good, but that is certainly the impression they give to observers.

HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.

Congregarse» indiscutiblemente significa reunirse en la presencia física de otros creyentes.

Hay un elemento de la adoración y de la vida cristiana que nunca puede experimentarse en la adoración a solas ni observando la adoración de otros. Hay algunas gracias y bendiciones que nuestro Padre nos da únicamente cuando nos «congregamos» con otros creyentes como familia de Dios.

Andrew Bonar wrote in his diary on December 13, 1880, "I long more and more to be filled with the Spirit, and to see my congregation moved and melted under the Word, as in great revival times, 'the place shaken where they are assembled together,' because the Lord has come in power.

the missionaries still see a growing anti-Americanism among the congregation.

I am also actively involved in my church and its community activities. We have programs to improve the lives of our congregation and programs of outreach in the community.

My wife and I are affiliated with a temple here in Los Angeles. We feel very close to the congregation and to the rabbi, who happens to be my wife's cousin and who I admire greatly. I talk to him regularly but I consider myself more spiritual than religious.

The unsettling truth is that, for nearly all of American history, the Jesus conjured by most white congregations was not merely indifferent to the status quo of racial inequality; he demanded its defense and preservation as part of the natural, divinely ordained order of things.

Traditional religion's dogma of selflessness is essentially an externalization of the individual's voice and therefore has a powerful negative influence on behavior. The haranguing voice of the fundamentalist minister castigating sinners and urging them to seek redemption directly resembles the self-critical "voices" of the members of his congregation.

No doubt the world's shamans have run the gamut from true believer to calculating fraud, and no doubt many true beliefs have been peppered by doubt. But so it is in other spiritual traditions, too. There are deeply religious Christian ministers who urge the congregation to pray for the ill even though they personally doubt that God uses opinion polls to decide who lives and who dies.

If a pastor's activity in the church is merely a once-a-week attempt to tow the congregation's cargo ship a little closer to eternity, the whole thing comes to nothing. A human life, unlike a cargo ship, cannot lie in the same place until the next Sunday.

THE WOMEN FROM THE congregation might appear delicate and ladylike, but on this island strength was a necessity. Most of these women could climb onto a roof before a storm to make certain that the shutters at every window were bolted shut, they could cook over an outdoor fire, kill chickens and wild waterfowl, do what they must should the tolerance of our people fade in yet another country.

In the distance, she could hear the congregation roaring the Talking Heads, bellowing about the sweet release of burning it all down.