Quotes about Church

In our local context, the pastors and elders and deacons are disciples of Jesus, called to submit first to him and to nurture others into serving one another as Jesus himself served his disciples. The strangest words in the church ought to be the words "authority" and "power.

The church, if it is going to be the church God designed it to be, must become a space for the full story of God's artistic grace — the story about where we were, where we are now, and where we will be someday.

The Sermon on the Mount is the moral portrait of Jesus' own people. Because this portrait doesn't square with the church, this Sermon turns from instruction to indictment. To those ends—both instruction and indictment—this commentary has been written with the simple goal that God will use this book to lead us to become in real life the portrait Jesus sketched in the Sermon.

This has to be emphasized, because today too many of us emphasize kingdom but ignore the Holy Spirit and Pentecost and church—as if kingdom meant nothing more than justice and peace and love in the world (or in their country or in their state or in their local village).

One of my favorite kingdom preachers is Minneapolis pastor of Sanctuary Covenant Church, Efrem Smith.

As John Howard Yoder has said, "If in society we believe in the rights of employees, then the church should be the first employer to deal with workers fairly. If in the wider society we call for the overcoming of racism or sexism or materialism, then the church should be the place where that possibility first becomes real.

The Psalter is responsible for creating the prayers in the church. It remains the core of all Christian prayers. Whenever we pray with psalms, we are joining the universal Church in prayer.

Every scene of heaven in the Bible shows us a vision of the Church praying together and singing together and praising together.

Down through the centuries, the Church has carefully preserved, protected, and defended its Marian teachings, because to give them up would be to give up the gospel.

The Church is the Body of Christ, and as such it is both heavenly and earthly. The Church is the communion of saints, and it includes as members both angels and shepherds - cherubim and seraphim, and you, and me.

The Christian Church does not exist in Heaven, but on earth and in time.

A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows.