Quotes about Church

If the Church is to be indigenous it must spring up in the soil from the very first seeds planted.

We should cease to talk of a native church as something to be attained after long years, or generations of probation. There would be native Churches at once which all men would recognize as native.

I found myself earnestly explaining to the young minister that I did not believe in God, 'but I've discovered that I can't live as though I didn't believe in him. As long as I don't need to say any more than that I try to live as though I believe in God, I would very much like to come to church--if you'll let me.

Strangely, as much as I heard the word secular as a label on things that should be avoided by good Christians, I don't ever remember hearing the word sacred as its opposite. Instead, I heard the words clean and safe to describe what was not deemed worldly. Clean and safe. How puny those words are. What a pitiful reduction of the grandeur of the created world and its inhabitants. What a sad commentary on the church's understanding of the God of the universe.

Sportsmanship, next to the Church, is the greatest teacher of morals.

Looking back to the earlier centuries of the church, most of the great teachers were also bishops and vice versa. It's only fairly recently that the church has had this great divide.

I'm a preacher first and a writer second, although my role is changing a bit at the church. I'm going to bring on a co-teacher, but I'll still be a pastor and a writer.

what intimacy of fellowship, to what wondrous oneness of life and interest, He invited them when He said, Abide in me. This is not only an unspeakable loss to themselves, but the Church and the world suffer in what they lose. If we ask the reason why those who have indeed accepted the Savior, and been made partakers of the renewing of the Holy Ghost

Do we not begin to fear that love has fled from the earth? That if we were to ask the world: "Have you seen us wear the badge of love?" the world would say: "No; what we have heard of the Church of Christ is that there is not a place where there is no quarreling and separation." Let us ask God with one heart that we may wear the badge of Jesus' love. God is able to give it.

It is one thing for a minister to be an advocate and supporter of missions: it is another and very different thing for him to understand that they are the chief end of the Church, and therefore the chief end for which his congregation exists. It is only when this truth masters him in its spiritual power, that he will be able to give the subject of missions its true place in his ministry.

The call to humility has been too little regarded in the church because its true nature and importance have been too little apprehended. It is not something that we bring to God, or that He bestows; it is simply the sense of entire nothingness that comes when we see how truly God is everything.

Those who love most are the most ready for His coming. Love to each other is the life and beauty of His bride, the church.