Quotes about Community

The gospel is not to take the form of hole-in-the-corner sectarianism, it must be set forth by public preaching.

A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses.

From this it follows that the Body of Christ is the place of acceptance, the place of atonement and peace between God and man. God finds man in the Body of Christ, and man finds himself accepted by God in that same body.

Every attempt to save the West that excludes one of the Western peoples [Völker] is condemned to failure.

God alone judges, and God's judgment is helpful and healing. After all, we can only serve other Christians; we can never place ourselves above them.

He who holds his tongue in check controls both mind and body. Thus it must be a decisive rule of every Christian fellowship that each individual is prohibited from saying much that occurs to him.

The existence of any Christian communal life essentially depends on whether or not it succeeds at the right time in promoting the ability to distinguish between a human ideal and God's reality, between spiritual and emotional community.

Even the most personal prayer no longer belongs to the individual, but to the church that gave birth to this person and through which this individual lives.

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.

In normal life one is often not at all aware that we always receive infinitely more than we give, and that gratitude is what enriches life. One easily overestimates the importance of one's own acts and deeds, compared with what we become only through other people.

Since I as a Christian cannot live without the church, since I owe my life to the church and now belong to it, so my merits are now no longer my own, but belong to the church.

I've often found it a great help to think in the evening of all those who I know are praying for me, children as well as grown-ups. I think I owe it to the prayers of others, both known and unknown, that I have often been kept in safety.