Quotes about Unity

The church has lost the chance of becoming the unifying element in our American society. It is not anticipating any facts. It is merely catching up very slowly to the new social facts created by economic and other forces. The American melting pot is doing its work. The churches merely represent various European cultures, lost in the amalgam of American life and maintaining a separate existence only in religion.

In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity.

The more they love each other, the more they participate in each other's griefs, and one or the other will be frequently under some sort of suffering.

If only preaching be necessary, let us have none but preachers. What needs there, then, such a stir about government? But if discipline (in its place) be necessary too, what is it but enmity to men's salvation to exclude it?

My last request is that all the faithful ministers of Christ would, without any more delay, unite and associate for the furtherance of each other in the work of the Lord and for the maintaining of unity and harmony in His churches, and that they would not neglect their brotherly meetings to those ends, nor yet spend them unprofitably, but improve them to their edification and the successful carrying on of the work.

Sometimes we see problems in our church. Such occasions are not opportunities to criticize or to leave, but to let Christ use our lives to be a part of His solution. If you are presently in a church that is suffering difficulties, could it be that Christ added you to your congregation for such a time as this?

When we fail we are merely joining the great parade of humanity that has walked ahead of us and will follow after us.

God for us, God alongside us, God within us.

God seems to be about turning our loves around and using them toward the great love that is their true object.

Failure and suffering are the great equalizers and levelers among humans. Success is just the opposite. Communities and commitment can form around suffering much more than around how wonderful or superior we are.

You know after any truly initiating experience that you are part of a much bigger whole. Life is not about you henceforward, but you are about life.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that "us-and-them" seeing, and the dualistic thinking that results, is the foundation of almost all discontent and violence in the world.