Church, Christianity and Religion
“People are deeply disappointed when they show up at a church hoping to find God but get us instead.”
Carey Nieuwhof
"Be part of the church that is
for the sake of the church that ought to be."
Visser't Hooft
"Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar
where he found bread". D.T.Niles
"I see in your church convention that you discussed the subject, 'How to Get People to Attend Church.'
I have never heard a single address at a farmer's convention
on how to get the cattle to come to the rack.
We spend our time discussing the best kind of feed."
The Baptist Outlook
"A minister, our driving, passed a track where a horse race was in progress. His six-year-old son gazed from the window at the crowded stadium, "Oh, Daddy," he exclaimed,
"all the pews are filled!" Together
"A real Christian is a person who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip." Billy Graham
"This is our vocation: to heal wounds, to bind what is broken,
to bring home those who are lost." St. Francis of Assissi
“Elders profoundly embody the gospel when they search out wandering members. Keeping watch and tracking down strays is a Jesus-shaped activity.” Jeramie Rinne, Church Elders:
How to Shepherd God's People Like Jesus
“Ministry means the ongoing attempt to put one's own search for God, with all the moments of pain and joy, despair and hope, at the disposal of those who want to join this search
but do not know how.” Henri Nouwen
“Your kids are not leaving the church because you didn’t train them enough. Your kids are leaving the church because you trained them well enough to develop a sense for truth and justice. You let them read the words of Jesus- and they got it. And they’ve recognized that the church doesn’t seem to be interested in those words. They’re not leaving because they don’t know the truth, they’re leaving because they do.”
Rhett McLaughlin
“If our religion is based on salvation, our chief emotions will be fear and trembling. If our religion is based on wonder,
our chief emotion will be gratitude.” Carl Jung
The reason the world is not seeing Jesus is that Christian people are not filled with Jesus. They are satisfied with attending meetings weekly, reading the Bible occasionally, and praying sometimes. It is an awful thing for me to see people who profess to be Christians lifeless, powerless,
and in a place where their lives are so parallel to unbelievers’ lives that it is difficult to tell which place they are in,
whether in the flesh or in the Spirit.”
Smith Wigglesworth
“I think humans prefer magical religion, which keeps all the responsibility on God performing or not performing, whereas mature and transformational religion asks us to participate, cooperate, and change.” The divine dance is always
a partnered two-step.” Richard Rohr
“Our commitment to be an inclusive church is not based on a social theory or the ways of the culture, but on our belief that the outstretched arms of Jesus on the cross are a sign of the very love of God reaching out to us all.”
Author Unknown
“It is customary to blame secularism for the eclipse of religion in modern society. But it would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive and insipid. When faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain, when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion--
its message becomes meaningless.”
Abraham Joshua Heschel
“The mark of a great church is not how many people come,
but how many people live differently for having been there.”
Author Unknown
“The church is like a swimming pool.
Most of the noise comes from the shallow end.”
John Shelby Spong
“Religion is at its best when it makes us ask hard questions of ourselves. It is at its worst when it deludes us into thinking we have all the answers for everybody else.”
Archibald Macleish
“It is time for us to seize the opportunity of this wilderness moment and to move forward with courage, permission to change, and freedom from fear, to imagine a church that bears witness to God’s limitless love.” Rev. Terri Hord Owens
“It’s hard to convince people that a God they can’t see loves them, when a church they can see doesn’t seem to like them.” John Alan Turner
“But the gospel doesn’t need a coalition devoted to keeping the wrong people out. It needs a family of sinners, saved by grace, committed to tearing down the walls, throwing open the doors, and shouting, ‘Welcome! There’s bread and wine. Come eat with us and talk.’ This isn’t a kingdom for the worthy; it’s a kingdom for the hungry.” Rachel Held Evans
“The problem is, many of the people in need of saving are in churches, and at least part of what they need saving from is the idea that God sees the world the same way they do.”
Barbara Brown Taylor
If we seek to make churches, we’ll never make disciples. If we seek to make disciples, we’ll always make churches.” Neil Cole
“Christianity should feel like ‘My chains fell of’
not ‘I better not screw up.’” Justin Buzzard
“To be a Christian is to be a traveler. We are on a journey through the inward space of the heart, a journey not measured by the course of our watch or the days of the calendar,
for it is a journey out of time into eternity.”
Kallitos Ware, The Orthodox Way
“The Church is not a group of people who believe all the same things; the Church is a group of people caught up in the same story, with Jesus at the center.” Rachel Held Evans
"Let us feed the hungry, house the homeless, stop the killing and provide medicine for the sick. When we have accomplished that, we can sit around and argue about religion.”
Author Unknown
"Small size is never an excuse to do church with anything less than greatness.” Karl Vaters
The role of a pastor is not to grow a big church.
The Pastor’s role is to grow mature disciples
who make disciples.” Rick Howerton
“Repeat after me: the whole world does not have to be Christian before I act like one.” Anonymous
"Be like Jesus: spend enough time with sinners to ruin your reputation with religious people." Joshua Harris
"This is what God's kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there's always room for more." Rachel Held Evans
Carey Nieuwhof
"Be part of the church that is
for the sake of the church that ought to be."
Visser't Hooft
"Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar
where he found bread". D.T.Niles
"I see in your church convention that you discussed the subject, 'How to Get People to Attend Church.'
I have never heard a single address at a farmer's convention
on how to get the cattle to come to the rack.
We spend our time discussing the best kind of feed."
The Baptist Outlook
"A minister, our driving, passed a track where a horse race was in progress. His six-year-old son gazed from the window at the crowded stadium, "Oh, Daddy," he exclaimed,
"all the pews are filled!" Together
"A real Christian is a person who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip." Billy Graham
"This is our vocation: to heal wounds, to bind what is broken,
to bring home those who are lost." St. Francis of Assissi
“Elders profoundly embody the gospel when they search out wandering members. Keeping watch and tracking down strays is a Jesus-shaped activity.” Jeramie Rinne, Church Elders:
How to Shepherd God's People Like Jesus
“Ministry means the ongoing attempt to put one's own search for God, with all the moments of pain and joy, despair and hope, at the disposal of those who want to join this search
but do not know how.” Henri Nouwen
“Your kids are not leaving the church because you didn’t train them enough. Your kids are leaving the church because you trained them well enough to develop a sense for truth and justice. You let them read the words of Jesus- and they got it. And they’ve recognized that the church doesn’t seem to be interested in those words. They’re not leaving because they don’t know the truth, they’re leaving because they do.”
Rhett McLaughlin
“If our religion is based on salvation, our chief emotions will be fear and trembling. If our religion is based on wonder,
our chief emotion will be gratitude.” Carl Jung
The reason the world is not seeing Jesus is that Christian people are not filled with Jesus. They are satisfied with attending meetings weekly, reading the Bible occasionally, and praying sometimes. It is an awful thing for me to see people who profess to be Christians lifeless, powerless,
and in a place where their lives are so parallel to unbelievers’ lives that it is difficult to tell which place they are in,
whether in the flesh or in the Spirit.”
Smith Wigglesworth
“I think humans prefer magical religion, which keeps all the responsibility on God performing or not performing, whereas mature and transformational religion asks us to participate, cooperate, and change.” The divine dance is always
a partnered two-step.” Richard Rohr
“Our commitment to be an inclusive church is not based on a social theory or the ways of the culture, but on our belief that the outstretched arms of Jesus on the cross are a sign of the very love of God reaching out to us all.”
Author Unknown
“It is customary to blame secularism for the eclipse of religion in modern society. But it would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive and insipid. When faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain, when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion--
its message becomes meaningless.”
Abraham Joshua Heschel
“The mark of a great church is not how many people come,
but how many people live differently for having been there.”
Author Unknown
“The church is like a swimming pool.
Most of the noise comes from the shallow end.”
John Shelby Spong
“Religion is at its best when it makes us ask hard questions of ourselves. It is at its worst when it deludes us into thinking we have all the answers for everybody else.”
Archibald Macleish
“It is time for us to seize the opportunity of this wilderness moment and to move forward with courage, permission to change, and freedom from fear, to imagine a church that bears witness to God’s limitless love.” Rev. Terri Hord Owens
“It’s hard to convince people that a God they can’t see loves them, when a church they can see doesn’t seem to like them.” John Alan Turner
“But the gospel doesn’t need a coalition devoted to keeping the wrong people out. It needs a family of sinners, saved by grace, committed to tearing down the walls, throwing open the doors, and shouting, ‘Welcome! There’s bread and wine. Come eat with us and talk.’ This isn’t a kingdom for the worthy; it’s a kingdom for the hungry.” Rachel Held Evans
“The problem is, many of the people in need of saving are in churches, and at least part of what they need saving from is the idea that God sees the world the same way they do.”
Barbara Brown Taylor
If we seek to make churches, we’ll never make disciples. If we seek to make disciples, we’ll always make churches.” Neil Cole
“Christianity should feel like ‘My chains fell of’
not ‘I better not screw up.’” Justin Buzzard
“To be a Christian is to be a traveler. We are on a journey through the inward space of the heart, a journey not measured by the course of our watch or the days of the calendar,
for it is a journey out of time into eternity.”
Kallitos Ware, The Orthodox Way
“The Church is not a group of people who believe all the same things; the Church is a group of people caught up in the same story, with Jesus at the center.” Rachel Held Evans
"Let us feed the hungry, house the homeless, stop the killing and provide medicine for the sick. When we have accomplished that, we can sit around and argue about religion.”
Author Unknown
"Small size is never an excuse to do church with anything less than greatness.” Karl Vaters
The role of a pastor is not to grow a big church.
The Pastor’s role is to grow mature disciples
who make disciples.” Rick Howerton
“Repeat after me: the whole world does not have to be Christian before I act like one.” Anonymous
"Be like Jesus: spend enough time with sinners to ruin your reputation with religious people." Joshua Harris
"This is what God's kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there's always room for more." Rachel Held Evans