Quotes about Church

Even though most people coming to a church for the first time cannot articulate this verse, they are probably thinking something similar to what James and John said to Jesus, "Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. 'Teacher, ' they said, 'we want you to do for us whatever we ask'" (Mark 10:35 NIV, emphasis added). Each week people show up telling the church, many times, "We want you to do for us whatever we ask".

In his book Vision America, Aubrey Malphurs asserted that much of the perceived church growth in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s was actually due primarily to the redistribution of believers, not genuine church growth. He stated, "The problems of the church in the 1980s carry over into the 1990s. The church as a whole continues to experience decline and the unchurched increase."

The idea that spiritual growth begins with discomfort is a fact many church members and church leaders have been unwilling or unable to embrace.

Being missional means moving intentionally beyond our church preferences, making missional decisions rather than preferential decisions.

If they do what missionaries do—study and learn language, become part of culture, proclaim the Good News, be the presence of Christ, and contextualize biblical life and church for that culture—they are missional churches.

Just as the true fruit of an apple tree is not an apple, but another tree; the true fruit of a small group is not a new Christian, but another group; the true fruit of a church is not a new group, but a new church; the true fruit of a leader is not a follower, but a new leader; the true fruit of an evangelist is not a convert, but new evangelists. Whenever this principle is understood and applied, the results are dramatic.

Our interests, goals, and ambitions must be centered on the all-embracing task the gospel sets before us. Paul describes this in Romans 15:20: "My ambition has always been to preach the Good News where the name of Christ has never been heard, rather than where a church has already been started by someone else.

We believe the church's purpose is to glorify God, not to make people happy. The church does not exist for believers or unbelievers; it exists for God's glory, for the equipping of believers, and the church is God's missionary in the world.

When the church protects the powerful at the expense of the victim, we have compromised. And in the end, these compromises add up and convince the world that the church is not a community for the broken in search of healing but just another human institution that puts expediency above righteousness and justice.

It is not enough for us to read this portion of the Bible and picture the Apostles Paul and Peter along with the church simply doing their best to be nice people. These letters reveal the subversive nature of God's kingdom at work among the empires of humanity. God set in motion a rebellion against the rebellions of men.

The Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when . . . he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal church is, by the divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer [Jesus] wills that His church should be endowed.

Not all religion is to be found in the church, any more than all knowledge is found in the classroom.