Quotes Tagged "church"

He'd gone to church for forty years and was only getting worse. It seemed like this should tell God something.

Tough times don't define you, they refine you. ‪

If the universe does consist of a battle between the devil and God, the final analysis should conclude that religion would have been the devil’s most brilliant move and science, God’s.

The Lord doesn't want anybody in His house who has to be dragged there.

God doesn't act like the Church. No, instead, the Church must act like God.

People are not being reached in the context of the body of Christ--they're like newborn babies being left on a doorstep somewhere to feed and care for themselves.

Dysfunction comes when we intertwine the church and God and view them as one.

The whole world is a theatre for the display of the divine goodness, wisdom, justice, and power, but the Church is the orchestra, as it were—the most conspicuous part of it; and the nearer the approaches are that God makes to us, the more intimate and condescending the communication of his benefits, the more attentively are we called to consider them.

No Temple made by mortal human hands can ever compare to the Temple made by the gods themselves. That building of wood and stone that houses us and that many believe conceals the great Secret Temple from prying eyes, somewhere in its heart of hearts, is but a decoy for the masses who need this simple concrete limited thing in their lives. The real Temple is the whole world, and there is nothing as divinely blessed as a blooming growing garden.

An entire nation shook under the power of one man’s [MLK’s] dream! Now if one dream can do that for our nation, imagine what a dream can do for the Church.

I don't like to hear cut and dried sermons. No—when I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.

The organist was almost at the end of the anthem’s long introduction, and as the crescendo increases the cathedral began to glitter before my eyes until I felt as if every stone in the building was vibrating in anticipation of the sweeping sword of sound from the Choir. The note exploded in our midst, and at that moment I knew our creator had touched not only me but all of us, just as Harriet had touched that sculpture with a loving hand long ago, and in that touch I sensed the indestructible fidelity, the indescribable devotion and the inexhaustible energy of the creator as he shaped his creation, bringing life out of dead matter, wresting form continually from chaos. Nothing was ever lost, Harriet had said, and nothing was ever wasted because always, when the work was finally completed, every article of the created process, seen or unseen, kept or discarded, broken or mended – EVERYTHING was justified, glorified and redeemed.

The weird thing about the bible is that almost everything in it is a metaphor. So it seems to me that when the bible describes church as a place where two or more people discuss God, they don’t mean just the cathedral like churches. I don’t know what, who or where God is; but if everything is a metaphor, I think he or she is a comparison to us. I think we are like, or as God. I think when we get together, and talk about ourselves, about being human, about what hurts us; we are also talking about God. So that’s also church, right? I know this might seem blasphemous, but my priest tells me its okay to ask questions, even if they seem bizarre.

There are no second chances at life.

The church must suffer for speaking the truth, for pointing out sin, for uprooting sin. No one wants to have a sore spot touched, and therefore a society with so many sores twitches when someone has the courage to touch it and say: “You have to treat that. You have to get rid of that. Believe in Christ. Be converted.

The operation of the Church is entirely set up for the sinner; which creates much misunderstanding among the smug.” (August 9, 1955)

Why are those who are notoriously undisciplined and unmoral also most contemptuous of religion and morality? They are trying to solace their own unhappy lives by pulling the happy down to their own abysmal depths.

As an attempt to escape their unhappiness, some people ran to something they used to look down on, or make fun of, when they were happy.

After you hear and listen. First must come desire. Second must come willingness. Third should come understanding. Fourth should come progression and with progression will come more understanding.

The church is not a place for perfection. It is, and should be, a haven of protection.