All Church Home Quotes & Sayings

One day we came home from some errands to find a grocery sack of [zucchini] hanging on our mailbox. The perpetrator, of course, was nowhere in sight ... Garrison Keillor says July is the only time of year when country people lock our cars in the church parking lot, so people won't put squash on the front seat. I used to think that was a joke ... It's a relaxed atmosphere in our little town, plus our neighbors keep an eye out and will, if asked, tell us the make and model of every vehicle that ever enters the lane to our farm. So the family was a bit surprised when I started double-checking the security of doors and gates any time we all were about to leave the premises.
"Do I have to explain the obvious?" I asked impatiently. "Somebody might break in and put zucchini in our house. — Barbara Kingsolver

So many people come to church with the genuine desire to hear what we have to say, yet they are always going back home with the uncomfortable feeling that we're making it too difficult for them to come to Jesus. Are we determined to have nothing to do with all these people? They are convinced that it is not the Word Jesus himself that puts them off, but the superstructure of human, institutional, and doctrinal elements in our preaching. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Well, what I don't understand is why people get all dressed up and drive to church so they can sit there and get scolded. Seems to me it'd be a whole lot easier for the to just stay home in their pj's, eat pancakes, and get yelled at over the radion. — Beth Hoffman

You asked, why are the poor poor. I was struck by that."
"What I can't see - what I really can't see - is why everyone doesn't ask themselves that, all the time . How can these people bear to go to church and then go about in the streets and see what is there for everyone to see - and get told what the Bible says about the poor - and go on riding in carriages, and choosing neckties and hats - and eating huge beefsteaks - I can't see it."
"I have brought a book for you to read. I think probably you should not let it be seen in your home. But I think it will speak to you. — A.S. Byatt

Mary was able to turn a stable into a home for Jesus, with poor swaddling clothes and an abundance of love. She is the handmaid of the Father who sings his praises. She is the friend who is ever concerned that wine not be lacking in our lives. She is the woman whose heart was pierced by a sword and who understands all our pain. — Pope Francis

Sue had been told that tumors had developed in her liver and lungs. She had been in a deep depression for a while, but she finally followed Barb's advice to call me after various people at her church kept saying that she could be happy - she was going home to be with Jesus. This is the type of thing that gives Christians a bad name. This, and the Inquisition. Sue wanted to open fire on them all. I think I encouraged this.
Some of her evangelical friends had insisted sorrowfully that her nieces wouldn't get into heaven, since they were Jews, as was one of her sisters. I told her what I believe to be true - that there was not one chance in a million that the nieces wouldn't go to heaven, and if I was wrong, who would even want to go? I promised that if there was any problem, she and I would refuse to go. We'd organize.
"What kind of shitty heaven would that be, anyway?" she asked. — Anne Lamott

It is far more important to love your wife than to love God, and I will tell you why. You cannot help him, but you can help her. You can fill her life with the perfume of perpetual joy. It is far more important that you love your children than that you love Jesus Christ. And why? If he is God you cannot help him, but you can plant a little flower of happiness in every footstep of the child, from the cradle until you die in that child's arms. Let me tell you to-day it is far more important to build a home than to erect a church. The holiest temple beneath the stars is a home that love has built. And the holiest altar in all the wide world is the fireside around which gather father and mother and the sweet babes. — Robert G. Ingersoll

My mother raised me in the church. I was not allowed to stay home on Sunday; there was no option. I sang in the choir all the way up until I went to college. — Steve Harvey

The greatest missionary tool we have is that of demonstrating friendliness, brotherly kindness, harmony, love and peace in our homes and in all our church meetings. — Theodore M. Burton

How torturous is the "churchly" language one must speak in church - the tone, style, habit. It is all artificial; there is a total absence of a simple human language. With what a sigh of relief one leaves this world of cassocks, and kissing and church gossip. As soon as one leaves, one sees: wet bare branches, fog which floats over fields, trees, homes. Sky. Early dusk. And it all tells an incredibly simple truth. — Alexander Schmemann

Nearly half of all associational memberships are church-religious context. Religious worshipers and people who say religion is very important to them are much more likely than other persons to visit friends, to entertain at home, to attend club meetings, and to belong to sports groups; professional and academic societies; school service groups; youth groups; service clubs; hobby or garden clubs; literary, art, discussion, and study groups; school fraternities and sororities; farm organization; political clubs; nationality groups; and other miscellaneous groups. — Robert Putnam

As little children we readily accept the first story we're given at home, or school, or church. We're told stories of nationalism, religion, racism, politics, and family. All too often we accept them before we learn to weigh them against other views. And all too often we're inclined to accept these (or other) frozen views rather than see each situation for what it is. — Steve Hagen

There was some little local controversy too, about a fundraising effort called Suzie's Closet--folks getting together in church basements to make care packages for the plantations--blankets and candy bars.....first they interviewed a local advocate for the homeless, asking why our attention shouuld be down there, "when there's so much suffering right here at home."...it was the usual stuff --all the new stories and just the old stories again. — Ben H. Winters

Even though we live in a world that people are much more conscience about being politically correct. The truth is if all children were taught from young (at home, church and school) that in our short existence on this planet, that we are all here to help humanity and to not hurt it and that hands are not for hurting but for trying to help all ... our world would be a much better place to live in. — Timothy Pina

She turned down her street once more, glaring at the garish lights someone had put up along their house. Might as well light the roof with "Santa Park Here". Sheesh. The closer she got to home, though, the lower her heart sank. The overly bright house looked suspiciously like ... No. Oh, no. He wouldn't. He had. Light up animated animals were dotted all over her lawn. The circle of life has apparently found our power outlet. And why the fuck is there a Star of David on my roof? She wasn't exactly the most church-going member of the community, but you'd think Simon would know what religion she was. After all, she knew exactly who was going to officiate at his funeral. She picked up her cell phone and called Emma. "I'm going to kill him. — Dana Marie Bell

This church with which we should be thinking is the home of all, not a small chapel that can hold only a small group of selected people. We must not reduce the bosom of the universal church to a nest protecting our mediocrity. And the church is Mother; the church is fruitful. It must be. You see, when I perceive negative behavior in ministers of the church or in consecrated men or women, the first thing that comes to mind is: 'Here's an unfruitful bachelor' or 'Here's a spinster.' They are neither fathers nor mothers, in the sense that they have not been able to give spiritual life. Instead, for example, when I read the life of the Salesian missionaries who went to Patagonia, I read a story of the fullness of life, of fruitfulness. — Pope Francis

Still i knew because of my own feelings there was something wrong with me and i knew it wasnt only me. I knew it was everybody. It was like a bacteria or a cancer or a trance. It wasnt on the skin, it was in the soul. It showed itself in lonliness, lust, anger , jealousy and depression. It had people screwed up bad everywhere you went- at the store, at home, at church, it was ugly and deep. Lots of singers on the radio were singing about it and cops had jobs because of it. It was as if we were broken I thought, as if we were never supposed to feel these sticky emotions. It was as if we were cracked, coudlnt love right, couldnt feel good things for a long before screwing it all up.
I am talking about the broken quality of life. — Donald Miller

The schools, the courts, the media - all seem determined to erase Christian influence from public life and confine religion to the four walls of the church or home. — Bruce L. Shelley

The incarnation began with Jesus and it has never stopped ... God takes on flesh so that every home becomes a church, every child becomes the Christ-child, and all food and drink become a sacrament. God's many faces are now everywhere, in flesh, tempered and turned down, so that our human eyes can see him. — Ronald Rolheiser

Stories of hiding out and near captures abound, including a humorous account of President Wilford Woodruff escaping capture because he was weeding a garden at the Squire home near downtown St. George wearing an oversized "Old Mother Hubbard" dress and bonnet sewn for him by young Sister Emma Squire. She wrote: "Soon after our marriage the president of the Church, Wilford Woodruff, came to live with us. It was the time of the raid, when the Government took the property away from the Mormon people...and they were hunting all the men that had plural wives and putting them in jail. ... We had some neighbors that knew we had someone staying with us, and they were very anxious to [discover] who it was. ... [So] I made [President Woodruff] a Mother Hubbard dress and sun bonnet and...dress[ed] him up ... and disguise[d] him so he could come [and go]. ... We called him Grandma Allen so the people wouldn't know. — Blaine M. Yorgason

Do not ride in cars: they are responsible for 20% of all fatal accidents. Do not stay at home: 17% of all accidents occur in the home. Do not walk on the streets or pavements: 14% of all accidents occur to pedestrians. Do not travel by air, rail, or water: 16% of accidents happen on these. Only .001% of all deaths occur in worship services in church, and these are usually related to previous physical disorders. Hence the safest place for you to be at any time is at church! — Mark Leslie

In the morning, we sliced all the vegetables and layered everything up in a pot with a glass of Riesling. On the way to church, we dropped it off with the baker, who sealed the lid with a strip of dough and put it in his oven for a couple of hours. We picked it up at 12 o'clock and took it home to eat with mustard and salad. — Jean-Georges Vongerichten

. Well, Teclan, wanna know something? Your government may have shut down my church. They may have closed the doors of our building and made us all go home. But no matter where true believers are, you can't shut down their soul. — Bernadette Allen

PRAISE FOR 'THE JOURNEY HOME'
Many saints are known and praised by all. We pray to them in litanies and celebrate their feast days. But the vast majority of holy men and women live heroic lives quietly before God.
Loyal to family, lovers of God, servants in the Church, these unsung saints live everyday life as an example for us. David Hanneman is one such man. His story is exemplary and should be told to the world. He not only lived a noble life, but also suffered with heroism and grace as he passed into glory.
This is a story to encourage and bless us all. We are thankful to Joseph Hanneman for sharing his father and making his story known to us who need such examples to encourage us as we face the difficulties and challenges of life. — Stephen K. Ray

I've got three kids. I worry about them but the gospel freed me and freed my wife. We are not trying to make our kids think that we're super spiritual or we've got it all together. They see mom and dad being real people. What they hear dad talking about at home is not different from what they see from dad [at church]. That won't guarantee that they'll avoid the whole PK, MK thing. But we are hopefully not contributing to what normally produces that crisis, which is pretending. — Tullian Tchividjian

If women have influence, it is only - and then only sometimes - within their home. Men control all the political and economic power, the culture and customs; they proclaim the laws and apply them as they wish, and when social pressures and the legal apparatus are not sufficient to subdue the most rebellious women, the Church steps in with its incontestable patriarchal seal. What is unforgivable, though, is that it is women who perpetuate and reinforce the system, continuing to raise arrogant sons and servile daughters. If they would agree to revise the standards, they could end machismo in one generation. — Isabel Allende

Darling Daddy,
This is Rose.
Very good news. Caddy is going to marry Micheal. In case you have forgotten because you have not been home for so long he is the one with the ponytail and the earring that you do not like. And Caddy says she will have a white lace dress and three bridesmaids, Saffron and Sarah and me, and a big party for everyone, all her old boyfriends too. Fireworks. A band. A big tent called a marquee. But where will we put it? Carriages with white horses for us all to go to the church. Afterward Caddy and Micheal will go for a holiday to Australia to visit the Great Barrier Reef. Caddy has it all worked out and Mummy says Yes She Can Of Course You Can Darling Of Course You Must Do That. Saffron said That Will Cost a Few Weeks Housekeeping and Mummy said Yes But We Do Not Need to Worry About That. DADDY WILL PAY.
Love, Rose. — Hilary McKay

According to her views," her niece later recalled, "little girls were to be taught to move very gently, to speak softly and prettily, to say 'yes, ma'am' and 'no, ma'am,' never to tear their clothes, to sew, to knit at regular hours, to go to church on Sunday and make all the responses, and to come home and be catechised." Harriet — Noel B. Gerson

(After getting out of another treatment center) I came home one Sunday morning. I sat on the edge of my bed. I never grew up going to church. I never read a Bible. I wasn't anti-God. I just never thought about God. I just lived for myself and thought about myself ... I was married by this point. I'd been married for two years. So, here I am sitting on the edge of my bed, nine o'clock Sunday morning. I have a son who's not quite two yet and I just broke down crying because I had been out all weekend doing cocaine. — Jay Haizlip

I actually started singing in church when I was about five years old. I remember looking at the choirs and just hearing all of those great big beautiful voices. And there was this one woman who could just wail. And I remember trying to sing like her when I was like going home. — Kelly Rowland

Dear sisters, many of you are endlessly compassionate and patient with the weaknesses of others. Please remember also to be compassionate and patient with yourself.
In the meantime, be thankful for all the small successes in your home, your family relationships, your education and livelihood, your Church participation and personal improvement. Like the forget-me-nots, these successes may seem tiny to you and they may go unnoticed by others, but God notices them and they are not small to Him. If you consider success to be only the most perfect rose or dazzling orchid, you may miss some of life's sweetest experiences. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

The end of all activity in the church is to see that a man and a woman with their children are happy at home, sealed for eternity. — Boyd K. Packer

God's dream still remains unfulfilled. It was not fulfilled 2,000 years ago, or in the home of any religious leader or any American home, and today the Unification Church is here to pledge to fulfill that dream. We don't want to confine that fulfillment to our Church, but to expand it all over the world. Wouldn't that be the Kingdom of God on earth? — Sun Myung Moon

One thing is very clear: the safest place and the best protection against the moral and spiritual diseases is a stable home and family. This has always been true; it will be true forever. We must keep that foremost in our minds. The scriptures speak of 'the shield of faith wherewith,' the Lord said, 'ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked' (D&C 27:17). This shield of faith is best fabricated in a cottage industry. While the shield can be polished in classes in the Church and in activities, it is meant to be handcrafted in the home and fitted to each individual. — Boyd K. Packer

In all God's plans for human redemption, He proposes that men pray. The men are to pray in every place, in the church, in the closet, in the home, on sacred days and on secular days. — Edward McKendree Bounds

Miss Princeton is . . ." He searched for a way to describe her. "Reckless."
"Reckless?" The word escaped all four men in perfect harmony.
He sighed. It wasn't like him to talk about personal matters. Drawing attention to himself was not his style. Back home in Phoenix people expected their ministers to be dignified and sedate. At age thirty, he'd served his church well. He could only imagine what his congregation would say if they knew how their esteemed leader bared his soul to a group of near strangers.
"Maybe that's not the right word but . . ." He couldn't think of another. "She taught our church ladies to play rounders."
The eye behind the monocle never wavered from its examination of him. "Far as I know, rounders isn't a sin. Why are you all riled up? — Mary Connealy

The church is a home for all to come together, regardless of the depth or the height of our testimony. I know of no sign on the doors of our meetinghouses that says, Your testimony must be this tall to enter. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Home is the seminary of all other institutions. There are the roots of all public prosperity, the foundations of the State, the germs of the church. There is all that in the child makes the future man; all that in the man makes the good citizen. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin

Three years earlier her father had been buried (irritable and impatient as he always had been) in the Fladstrand Church cemetery that bordered the lovely park, Plantagen, which shared with the cemetery its trees, shared its beech and ash and maple, in the same plot where her mother, wide eyed and confused, had lain down almost willingly two years before, where her brother had lain for thirty-five years, dazed and unwillingly after too short a life.
A dove was looking down from atop the family gravestone. It was made from metal so it could not fly away, but sometimes it went missing all the same and only a spike would remain. Someone had taken that dove, someone out there maybe had an entire collection of doves and angels and other small, Christian bronze sculptures in a cupboard at home and on long evenings would close the curtains and take them out and run his fingers gently over the smooth, cold bodies. — Per Petterson

various people at her church kept saying that she could be happy because she was going home to be with Jesus. This is the sort of thing that gives Christians a bad name. This, and the Inquisition. Sue wanted to open fire on them all. I think I encouraged this. — Anne Lamott

Llanfair - home if Saint Gelert's grave. We should call ourselves that, like that other Llanfair.'
'You mean the other Llanfair over the Anglesey; the one that claims to have the longest name in the world?' Barry-the-Bucket asked.
'That's exactly what I mean', Evans-the-Meat said grandly. 'If they can call themselves Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which we all know means nothing more important than Saint Mary's church in the hollow of white hazel near the rapid whirlpool and Saint Tisilio's church near the red cave, then why shouldn't we start calling ourselves Llanfair-up-on-the-pass-with-the-brook-running-through-it-and-Saint-Gelert's-grave-right-above-it? — Rhys Bowen

Sadly, some have had a very different experience in community. Rather than a transformation of soul, they have experienced a deformation of soul. They entered a community hoping to find a home of unconditional love. What they found was a self-righteous, self-protective, self-promoting reality. If this has been your experience, we are truly sorry. But the fact that communities often fail to live into what the gospel makes possible is no reason to reject community. The emergence of our true self depends on the community life we live in. It is critical that we all find a good church so that our true self can flourish. — Richard Plass

We went to a church that had missionaries who'd come back once a year from Fiji & give talks. I remember one of them saying it was very hard work telling people they were going to lose their everlasting souls if they didn't shape up. I pictured people sitting on the beach listening to this sweaty man all dressed in black telling them they were going to burn in hell & them thinking this was good fun, these scary stories this guy was telling them & afterwards, they'd all go home & eat mango & fish & they'd play Monopoly & laugh & laugh & they'd go to bed & wake up the next day & do it all again. — Brian Andreas

We all carry our sins with us. But the Lord wants to hear us say to him, "Forgive me, help me to walk, change my heart!" And the Lord can change your heart. In the Church, the God we encounter is not a merciless judge but is like the Father in the Gospel parable. You may be like the son who left home, who sank to the depths, farthest from the Gospel. When you have the strength to say, "I want to come home," you will find the door open. God will come to meet you because he is always waiting for you - God is always waiting for you. God embraces you, kisses you, and celebrates. That is how the Lord is, that is how the tenderness of our heavenly Father is. The Lord wants us to belong to a Church that knows how to open her arms and welcome everyone, that is not a house for the few, but a house for everyone, where all can be renewed, transformed, sanctified by his love - the strongest and the weakest, sinners, the indifferent, those who feel discouraged or lost. — Pope Francis

Christians and Jews hold in common one theological basis for hospitality: Creation. Creation is the ultimate expression of God's hospitality to His creatures. In the words of on rabbi, everything God created is a "manifestation of His kindness. [The] world is one big hospitality inn." As Church historian Amy Oden has put it, "God offers hospitality to all humanity ... by establishing a home.. for all." To invite people into our homes is to respond with gratitude to the God who made a home for us.
In the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, we find another resource for hospitality. The trinity shows God in relationships with Himself. our Three-in-one God has welcomed us into Himself and invited us to participate in divine life. And so the invitation that we as Christians extend to one another is not simply an invitation into our homes or to our tables; what we ask of other people it that hey enter into our lives. — Lauren F. Winner

Canadians don't get curious when American tourists buy lots of food," I said. "If the guy thought about it all, he probably figured I wanted to take the doughnuts home, or to my church group or academic conference or whatever."
Sig eyed my clothes doubtfully. "How did he know you were American?"
"I made sure I talked loud," I said. — Elliott James

I was working in a church in Florida as a youth intern, which means I really didn't do much other than staple stuff. I'm from Dallas, Texas, and every time my grandmother would call-she would call me any time of the day-I'd be home answering the phone. She was like, "What do you do all day?" and sarcastically I would say, "Well, I'm trying to chalk off the next year to spend time finding a band name." And she said, "Well mercy me, why don't you get a real job?" I thought, "Wait a minute. That's the perfect name." That kind of freed up my year but that's where the name came from. — Bart Millard

First, in keeping with Joseph Ratzinger's vision of a "church for the little people" (and in the interests of helping pay off the sex abuse lawsuits), all Apostolic Nunciatures would be closed, their properties sold and their papal nuncios recalled to Rome, where they would be asked to seek alternative employment. All foreign ambassadors would be sent home. Finally, the Holy See would submit two resolutions to the UN General Assembly: the first seeking to dissolve its status as a non-member state permanent observer, the second requesting status as a non-governmental organization. — Daniel Gawthrop

The house, and all the objects in it, crackled with static electricity; undertows washed through it, the air was heavy with things that were known but not spoken. Like a hollow log, a drum, a church, it was amplified, so that conversations whispered in it sixty years ago can be half-heard today. — Margaret Atwood

I suppose there may be a branch president or a high councilor or an elders quorum president or a visiting teacher in the room who wants to know what it is we are to accomplish as Church members when we get together, even if it's only in a home evening group or an opportunity to pray together. Well, this passage indicates that it may have something to do with remembering each other. We all count. Everyone matters. We have a name and it's recorded and we need to remember that here. No one must get lost. "And their names were taken, that they might be remembered and nourished by the good word of God ... to keep them continually watchful unto prayer, relying alone upon the merits of Christ ... to fast and to speak with one another concerning the welfare of their souls ... to observe that there should be no iniquity among them"
what a great thought about meetings and what they are supposed to do, what a Sunday School class can be, what a scriptural discussion in an apartment can be. — Jeffrey R. Holland

education and money. I go to church with the kids for the same reason Genie and I play our grandchildren classical music and litter the floors and chairs all over our home with open art books. Jack, age three, eats his lunch with a big Goya book propped in front of him asking for the — Frank Schaeffer

They don't come to church on Sunday morning to think about new ideas or even the old important ones. They want to hear what they've been told before, with only some small variation on what they've been hearing all their lives, and then they want to go home and eat pot roast and say it was a good service and feel satisfied. But — Kent Haruf

But he had always believed in fighting for the underdog, against the top dog. He had learned it, not from The Home, or The School, or The Church, but from that fourth and other great moulder of social conscience, The Movies. From all those movies that had begun to come out when Roosevelt went in.
He had been a kid back then, a kid who had not been on the bum yet, but he was raised up on all those movies that they made then, the ones that were between '32 and '37 and had not yet degenerated into commercial imitations of themselves like the Dead End Kid perpetual series that we have now. He had grown up with them, those movies like the every first Dead End, like Winternet, like Grapes Of Wrath, like Dust Be My Destiny, and those other movies starring John Garfield and the Lane girls, and the on-the-bum and prison pictures starring James Cagney and George Raft and Henry Fonda. — James Jones

As it recurred again and again, it set me thinking of what my architect's books say about the custom in early times to consecrate the choir as soon as it was built, and that the nave, being finished sometimes half a century later, often did not get any blessing at all: I wondered idly if that had been the case at St. Barnabe, and whether something not usually supposed to be at home in a Christian church, might have entered undetected, and taken possession of the west gallery. I had read of such things happening too, but not in works on architecture.
("In The Court Of The Dragon") — Robert W. Chambers

The governments and their policies have failed, the church is the last hope of the common man, I value a church that is a home for all. — Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

The ultimate end of all activity in the Church is to see a husband and his wife and their children happy at home, protected by the principles and laws of the gospel, sealed safely in the covenants of the everlasting priesthood. Husbands and wives should understand that their first calling-from which they will never be released-is to one another and then to their children. — Boyd K. Packer

Be informed, also, that this good and savoury Parish is the home of Hectors, Trapanners, Biters who all go under the general appelation of Rooks. Here are all the Jilts, Cracks, Prostitutes, Night-walkers, Whores, Linnen-lifters, who are like so many Jakes, Privies, Houses of Office, Ordures, Excrements, Easments and piles of Sir-reverence: the whores of Ratcliffe High-way smell of Tarpaulin and stinking Cod from their continuall Traffick with seamen's Breeches. There are other such wretched Objects about these ruined Lanes, all of them lamentable Instances of Vengeance. And it is not strange (as some think) how they will haunt the same Districts and will not leave off their Crimes until they are apprehended, for these Streets are their Theatre. Theft, Whoredom and Homicide peep out of the very Windows of their Souls; Lying, Perjury, Fraud, Impudence and Misery are stamped upon their very Countenances as now they walk within the Shaddowe of my Church. — Peter Ackroyd

It is the conflicting interests of the man and the woman, the home and the shop, the Church and the State, which cause the economic struggle, the war and the strife with which mankind is cursed and which make all long and pray for the reign of peace. — Max Heindel

In the past, children learned their values at home, reinforced by organizations such as the Boy Scouts and, of course, their church or synagogue, but in all too many families that is no longer the case. — Paul Weyrich

What would have become of the people five hundred years ago if they had followed strictly the advice of the doctors? They would have all been dead. What would the people have been, if at any age of the world they had followed implicitly the direction of the church? They would have all been idiots. It is a splendid thing that there is always some grand man who will not mind, and who will think for himself. I believe in allowing the children to think for themselves.
I believe in the democracy of the family. If in this world there is anything splendid, it is a home where all are equals. — Robert G. Ingersoll

O Lord, give all of us new hearts, open and obedient to you: hearts that love our neighbor and pray to you for our church. Lord, give us a good beginning; open your fatherly heart to us and lead us, one day, home to your kingdom of eternal reconciliation, through Christ the Lord! Amen. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I Am a Child Of God. And He has sent me here. Has given me an earthly home, with parents kind and dear. Lead me, guide me, walk beside me. Help me find the way. Teach me all that I must do to live with him someday. — The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints

Who should serve the Lord's Supper? Well in the early church, considering Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 11, the host of the home presumably was the host of the meal, and as I have said, really, the Lord is the host at his own table, not any of us. We are all just participants, we are all celebrants. I don't think there is any biblical warrant for the serving of the Lord's Supper to be confined to ministers, but I do think that anyone who undertakes such a sacred task should be trained to do it in a respectful manner. — Ben Witherington III

When you live in the present moment, time stands still. Accept your circumstances and live them. If there is an experience ahead of you, have it! But if worries stand in your way, put them off until tomorrow. Give yourself a day off from worry. You deserve it. Some people live with a low-grade anxiety tugging at their spirit all day long. They go to sleep with it, wake up with it, carry it around at home, in town, to church, and with friends. Here's a remedy: Take the present moment and find something to laugh at. People who laugh, last. — Barbara Johnson

Churches and trains
they all look the same to me now
they shoot you some place
while we ache to come home somehow. — Gregory Alan Isakov

The Finns also have a bent for drink, even though there is no wine here whatsoever, except for illicit tavern keeping, which is harshly suppressed. But, all the way to St. Petersburg, the Finn will drink himself into forgetfulness, lose his money, horse, bridle, and return home poorer than a church rat. — Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin

A Christian who has a hard time living by his or her faith while driving, for instance, could hang a symbol - a cross or a fish - on their rearview mirror to challenge them when their temper begins to flare. (That's certainly preferable to putting a Christian bumper sticker on the back of the car for all to see, and then driving like a son of perdition!) A pastor friend of mine uses a pond near his home as a symbol. As soon as he drives by that pond, he is reminded that he is going home and needs to prepare himself to focus on his wife and children, leaving the cares, worries, and concerns of the church on the north side of the pond. He can pick them back up the next morning when he passes the pond on his way to work. A symbol can be found to meet virtually every need in every situation. Men — Gary L. Thomas

My life is over.
My one forever love has
been snatched away,
condemned by my own
father's rules to die,
just because he loved me.

I am without a home,
without a single person to love.
And after having
discovered love, lived for a short
while surrounded by love,
that is to much to bear.

I am a pariah, at church,
at school. The few people
I once called friends have
betrayed me and caused
the death of my husband,
our innocent child.

And so they should die too.
All of them. Dad. Bishop
Crandall. Trevor, Becca, Emily.
With the pull of a 10mm hair
trigger, their lives will end at sacrament meeting.
Such lovely irony!

And when I finish there,
I'll hide in the desert,
reload, and go in search
of Carmen and Tiffany,
who started the rumors.
And Derek, just because. — Ellen Hopkins

The Lord Jesus Christ is preparing a home fit for all who live for Him, a place designed for the church triumphant. Let's exemplify the work of His hands, for they are busy, on our behalf, building a city large enough to encompass His people of faith - an eternal home for the soul. — Billy Graham

April 26 - I know I shouldn't hang around the college when I'm through at the lab, but seeing the young men and women going back and forth carrying books and hearing them talk about all the things they're learning in their classes excites me. I wish I could sit and talk with them over coffee in the Campus Bowl Luncheonette when they get together to argue about books and politics and ideas. It's exciting to hear them talking about poetry and science and philosophy - about Shakespeare and Milton; Newton and Einstein and Freud; about Plato and Hegel and Kant, and all the other names that echo like great church bells in my mind. Sometimes I listen in on the conversations at the tables around me, and pretend I'm a college student, even though I'm a lot older than they are. I carry books around, and I've started to smoke a pipe. It's silly, but since I belong at the lab I feel as if I'm a part of the university. I hate to go home to that lonely room. — Daniel Keyes

But we are learning from the teaching and example of Jesus that life itself is a religion, that nothing is more sacred than a human being, that the end of all right institutions, whether the home or the church or an educational establishment, or a government, is the development of the human soul. — Anna Howard Shaw