Church Health Quotes & Sayings

As long as quick numerical growth remains the primary indicator of church health, the truth will be compromised. Instead, churches must once again begin measuring success not in terms of numbers but in terms of fidelity to the Scriptures. — Mark Dever

VII of Denmark, he became regent of Denmark when the king's life-long mental illness grew extreme enough to create a power vacuum. Struensee's dramatic social reforms included universal health care, limits on the totalitarian power of the Church, abolishing torture, removing censorship of the press, revoking privileges for nobles, — Frank Schaeffer

When a human body is out of balance we call that disease ... Likewise, when the body of Christ becomes unbalanced, disease occurs ... Health will occur only when everything is brought back into balance. The task of church leadership is to discover and remove growth-restricting diseases and barriers so that natural, normal growth can occur. — Rick Warren

If a school makes an effort to provide kids the right foods and help them to be more active, this benefits the student and the family's health. If you embark on a program to improve your health with a church or community group, you are more likely to stick with it over time. — Tom Rath

There are several specific things that the church can do. First, it should try to get to the ideational roots of race hate, something that the law cannot accomplish. All race prejudice is based upon fears, suspicions, and misunderstandings, usually groundless. The church can be of immeasurable help in giving the popular mind direction here. Through its channels of religious education, the church can point out the irrationality of these beliefs. It can show that the idea of a superior or inferior race is a myth that has been completely refuted by anthropological evidence. It can show that Negroes are not innately inferior in academic, health, and moral standards. It can show that, when given equal opportunities, Negroes can demonstrate equal achievement. — Martin Luther King Jr.

My church has a health and fitness ministry to encourage our members to take care of spiritually and physically; how could I not? — Marvin Sapp

If we're not careful, our individualistic assumptions about church can lead us to think of the church as something like a health club. We're members because we believe in the mission statement and want to be a part of the action. As long as the church provides the services I want, I'll stick around. But when I no longer approve of the vision, or am no longer "being fed," I'm out the door. This is not biblical Christianity. Scripture is clear that when we become Christians, we become-permanently and spiritually-a part of the church. We become part of the family of God, with all the responsibilities and expectations that word connotes in the non-Western world. — E. Randolph Richards

Total separation of church and state was considered the best safeguard for the health of each. As [Andrew] Jackson explained, in refusing to name a fast day, he feared to 'disturb the security which religion now enjoys in this country, in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.' — Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

Let it be known that this is the true Church, in which there is confession and penance and which takes a health-promoting care of the sins and wounds to which the weak flesh is subject. — Lactantius

A final irony has to do with the idea of political responsibility. Christians are urged to vote and become involved in politics as an expression of their civic duty and public responsibility. This is a credible argument and good advice up to a point. Yet in our day, given the size of the state and the expectations that people place on it to solve so many problems, politics can also be a way of saying, in effect, that the problems should be solved by others besides myself and by institutions other than the church. It is, after all, much easier to vote for a politician who champions child welfare than to adopt a baby born in poverty, to vote for a referendum that would expand health care benefits for seniors than to care for an elderly and infirmed parent, and to rally for racial harmony than to get to know someone of a different race than yours. True responsibility invariably costs. Political participation, then, can and often does amount to an avoidance of responsibility. — James Davison Hunter

I shall be obliged if you will send Nora and the girls to church every Sunday for the next month to pray for the continued health and strength of the messrs. gilliam, reese, snider, campanella, robinson, hodges, furillo, podres, necombe and labine, collectively known as the The Brooklyn Dodgers. If they lose this World Series I shall Do Myself In and then where will you be? — Helene Hanff

The freedom to be able to offer education, human services, and health care in accordance with our own identity as a church should not be denied us simply because there may be the perception of a political majority who favors a new understanding of the American tradition of pluralism. — Donald Wuerl

the health of the church is directly tied to the health of groups in the church. If you are not in a small group, a Sunday school class, or some other type of group, you are not contributing to the health of the church. — Thom S. Rainer

Accompanying the people in their growth through good times and also through their difficulties, accompanying people in their joy and in their bad moments, in their difficulties when there is no work, ill health and the challenge of the Church. — Pope Francis

Patrick Cheng's Radical Love is not only an excellent introduction to LGBT theology but an important contribution to the discipline of theology and the life of the church. It is a must read for anyone who cares about the health of the church and theology today. — James H. Cone

Our great common challenge ... is to free people from religion, get it out of our laws, our schools, our health systems, our government and, I would add, also our sporting events. I would really like to see some separation of church and stadium, if we could work on that. — Barbara Ehrenreich

I believe that you measure the health or strength of a church by its sending capacity rather than its seating capacity. — Rick Warren

Despite the rise of the mental health profession, people are becoming increasingly vulnerable to depression. Why? Martin Seligman, a brilliant psychologist with no religious ax to grind, has a theory that it's because we have replaced church, faith, and community with a tiny little unit that cannot bear the weight of meaning. That's the self. We're all about the self. We revolve our lives around ourselves. — John Ortberg

Parasitism is the only practice of the church; with its ideal of anaemia, its holiness, draining all blood, all love, all hope for life; the beyond as the will to negate every reality; the cross as the mark of recognition for the most subterranean conspiracy that ever existed-against health, beauty, whatever has turned out well, courage, spirit, graciousness of the soul, against life itself. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Priesthood quorums teach and assist their members to attain good health, financial stability, and a year's supply of food and clothing. They also teach their members to be self-reliant and to give their time, talents, and means in behalf of the Church, community, and needy. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

The future glories of heaven have been overshadowed by the present glitter of earth, and many Christians have sunk into a health-wealth-and-prosperity comfort zone from which only death itself or the rapture of the church would dare remove them - and even those would be unwelcome intrusions to some. Few people long for heaven. (pg. 158). — John MacArthur Jr.

Work is only part of a man's life; play, family, church, individual and group contacts, educational opportunities, the intelligent exercise of citizenship, all play a part in a well-rounded life. Workers are men and women with potentialities for mental and spiritual development as well as for physical health. We are paying the price today of having too long sidestepped all that this means to the mental, moral, and spiritual health of our nation. — Mary Barnett Gilson

Sometimes I come across a tree which seems like Buddha or Jesus: loving, compassionate, still, unambitious, enlightened, in eternal meditation, giving pleasure to a pilgrim, shade to a cow, berries to a bird, beauty to its surroundings, health to its neighbors, branches for the fire, leaves for the soil, asking nothing in return, in total harmony with the wind and the rain. How much can I learn from a tree? The tree is my church, the tree is my temple, the tree is my mantra, the tree is my poem and my prayer. — Satish Kumar

Our women are not incredible because they have managed to avoid the difficulties of life - quite the opposite. They are incredible because of the way they face the trials of life. Despite the challenges and tests life has to offer - from marriage or lack of marriage, children's choices, poor health, lack of opportunities, and many other problems - they remain remarkably strong and immovable and true to the faith. Our sisters throughout the Church consistently succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees. — Quentin L. Cook

Sometimes I cannot say much about why I go to church other than what people who go to the gym say: I always feel better once I'm there; I feel better after; it is always good for me, not good in a take-your-vitamins way, in a chidingly moralistic way, but in a palpable way. — Lauren F. Winner

Meanwhile in Wichita, Kansas, Dr. George Tiller, one of the few doctors who performs late-term abortions - only about 1 percent of all procedures but crucial when, for instance, a fetus develops without a brain - is shot in both arms by a female picketer. He recovers and continues serving women who come to him from many states. I finally meet Dr. Tiller in 2008 at a New York gathering of Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health. I ask him if he has ever helped a woman who was protesting at his clinic. He says: "Of course, I'm there to help them, not to add to their troubles. They probably already feel guilty." In 2009 Dr. Tiller is shot in the head at close range by a male activist hiding inside the Lutheran church where the Tiller family worships each Sunday. This is done in the name of being "pro-life. — Gloria Steinem

Anxious systems also fail to get a clear view of things. Embedded in their dread, they lose a sense of proportion. They have little awareness of what is happening and how it is being mutually maintained. Emotionally cramps the broader view. — Peter L. Steinke

So what's the endgame? The upward cycle of curve upon curve can't continue forever. Bodies age, congregations decline, and nations rise and fall. Certainly, we cannot launch curve after curve in perpetuity. But we can use this model to transfer momentum to the next generation. This is not about the ongoing existence of one particular church but the future health of Jesus' church and the forward momentum of the gospel from one era to the next. — Sutton Turner

When the church is engaged in meaningful prayer, it becomes both the cause and the result of greater church health. — Thom S. Rainer

Fools despise wisdom and instruction" (Prov. 1:7), but it is the nature of true godliness, maturity, and health in church members to accept the loving instruction and rebuke of others. — Thabiti M. Anyabwile

The health of a church depends not merely on the creed which it professes, not even on the wisdom and holiness of a few great ecclesiastics, but on the faith and virtue of its individual members. — Charles Kingsley