Church On Fire Quotes & Sayings

But in every church there are people who, for reasons which seem sufficient to them, do not approve of their pastor and seek to harry him and bully him into some condition pleasing to themselves. The democracy which the Reformation brought into the Christian Church rages in their bosoms like a fire; they would deny that they regard their clergyman as their spiritual hired hand, whom they boss and oversee for his own good, but that is certainly the impression they give to observers. — Robertson Davies

Wilmington, Del. (AP) June 14, 1966 - A fire that destroyed the city's oldest Negro church has led to the discovery of a wild slave narrative that highlights a little-known era of American history. The First United — James McBride

Strange things began to happen that made Holmes's claims about being the devil seem almost plausible. Detective Geyer became seriously ill. The warden of Moyamensing prison committed suicide. The jury foreman was electrocuted in a freak accident. The priest who delivered Holmes's last rites was found dead on the grounds of his church of mysterious causes. The father of Emeline Cigrand was grotesquely burned in a boiler explosion. And a fire destroyed the office of District Attorney George Graham, leaving only a photograph of Holmes unscathed. — Erik Larson

The killing happened amid an outburst of deadly violence across the District that claimed six lives in six days. The victims include a community news reporter who police said was waiting for a bus when she was shot by someone aiming at another person; and a motorist killed when a passenger opened fire from another vehicle on the Anacostia Freeway. The killings bring the District's homicide count to 50, up from 45 at this time last year. At Friday night's vigil, Gliss's pastor, Bishop Melvin G. Brown of Greater New Hope Baptist Church, acknowledged national attention on police use of deadly force. But he urged mourners to address dangers closer to home. "Can we be real tonight?" Brown said. "Most of the violence, most of the killing comes from us killing other folk. Young black folk killing other young black folk. — Anonymous

Whether you teach or live in the cloister or nurse the sick, whether you are in religion or out of it, married or single, no matter who you are or what you are, you are called to the summit of perfection: you are called to a deep interior life perhaps even to mystical prayer, and to pass the fruits of your contemplation on to others. And if you cannot do so by word, then by example.
Yet if this sublime fire of infused love burns in your soul, it will inevitably send forth throughout the Church and the world an influence more tremendous than could be estimated by the radius reached by words or by example. — Thomas Merton

The drag queen walks into a Catholic church as the priest is coming down the aisle swinging the incense pot. And he says to the priest, Oh, honey, I love your dress, but did you know your handbag's on fire? — Garrison Keillor

You never have to advertise a fire. Everyone comes running when there's a fire. Likewise, if your church is on fire, you will not have to advertise it. The community will already know it. — Leonard Ravenhill

I ask that this one thing, your church would gaze on the, the beauty of the Lord, I ask that you would awaken the hardened lost. I ask you to fascinate your church with the revelation of the beauty of Jesus. Come and release lovesickness for Jesus. Come and unlock the fountains of the hearts, now, Lord, by the river of fire, by the Holy Spirit, by the spirit of revelation. Let us see what the Seraphim see. Let us be awestruck by the beauty of the God-man. In the name of Jesus we ask that. — Mike Bickle

Hell came right along with God, hand in hand. The stink of sulfur swirled in the air of the church, fire burned in the aisles, and brimstone rained out of the rafters. From the evangelist's oven mouth spewed images of a place with pitchforks, and devils, and lakes of fire that burned forever. God had fixed a place like that because he loved us so much. — Harry Crews

I was raised in the church, and there's still a fire burning inside me. I definitely don't ever want to be preachy. But less and less young people are religious. The thing is, I see so many positive things about religion, so I'm happy to talk about it. — Brandon Flowers

I think that when Lady Tamarind looks at you, she feels as the cathedral might if it suddenly remembered that once it had been a grim little church facing down musket fire and a cruel sea wind. — Frances Hardinge

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

Not of the priest, and not of the devils, nor of the pits of fire. She had seen their devils. She saw them every day. Some were wicked, and some were kind, and some were mischievous. All were as human in their way as the folk they guarded. No, Vasya was frightened of her own people. They did not joke on the way to church anymore. — Katherine Arden

I once compiled a list of events that frightened her, and it was quite comprehensive: very loud snoring; low-flying aircraft; church bells; fire engines; trains; buses and lorries; thunder; shouting; large cars; most medium-sized cars; noisy small cars; burglar alarms; fireworks, especially crackers; loud radios; barking dogs; whinnying horses; nearby silent horses; cows in general; megaphones; sheep; corks coming out of sparkling wine bottles; motorcycles, even very small ones; balloons being popped; vacuum cleaners (not being used by her); things being dropped; dinner gongs; parrot houses; whoopee cushions; chiming doorbells; hammering; bombs; hooters; old-fashioned alarm clocks; pneumatic drills; and hairdryers (even those used by her). — John Cleese

Zeal, if it be well ordered, is most beautiful in a Christian; but if not, it is a thing of exceeding great danger: as fire in moderation is most comfortable, but in extremity most fearful. — Nehemiah Rogers

Here's how to get started with the antipolitical politics of the Benedict Option. Secede culturally from the mainstream. Turn off the television. Put the smartphones away. Read books. Play games. Make music. Feast with your neighbors. It is not enough to avoid what is bad; you must also embrace what is good. Start a church, or a group within your church. Open a classical Christian school, or join and strengthen one that exists. Plant a garden, and participate in a local farmer's market. Teach kids how to play music, and start a band. Join the volunteer fire department. — Rod Dreher

He would like best of all to persecute us with fire and sword, but this method has availed him little because through the blood of martyrs the church has been watered. — Martin Luther

A move of the Spirit of God is coming to the Catholic Church. The youth in particular will be ignited with a fresh fire of zeal and passion for Christ and His Gospel. A radical company of Believers will arise in the Catholic Church during this move, and they will release a flow of God's love and truth into the nations. — Patricia King

The best way to revive a church is to build a fire in the pulpit. — Dwight L. Moody

If you find yourself in the unfortunate position of being black-friendless, you can either go to the nearest black church and strike up a conversation, or just fire up Facebook, search for "black people," and start clicking "Add Friend" on the names in the resulting lists. Technology is amazing and quite a time-saver. — Baratunde R. Thurston

Let us set apart special seasons for extraordinary prayer. For if this fire should be smothered beneath the ashes of a worldly conformity, it will dim the fire on the family altar, and lessen our influence both in the Church and in the world. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The purpose of revival is to fire the church with divine energy for her divine assignment. Revival will tear us away from our temporal pursuits to give ourselves for what really matters.Revival will not occur without prayer. Prevailing prayer is always antecedent to revival. — David Shibley

I came out when I was 17. I was in the church; I was crying every Sunday for about a year. I came to terms with the fact with this is who I was - I wasn't going to be able to be a different person. At 17, you feel like a freak already, and so to have that fire and brimstone against your attraction is just screwed up! — Mary Lambert

And God grant that His fire be not quenched! God save us from any smoothing over of these questions in the interests of a hollow pleasantness; God grant that great questions of principle may never rest until they are stettled right! It is out of such times of questioning that great revivals come. God grant that it may be so today! Controversy of the right sort is good; for out of such controversy, as Church history and Scripture alike teach, there comes the salvation of souls. — John Gresham Machen

How people feel when they are returning home from an absence, long or short, I did not know: I had never experienced the sensation. I had known what it was to come back to Gateshead when a child after a long walk, to be scolded for looking cold or gloomy; and later, what it was to come back from church to Lowood, to long for a plenteous meal and a good fire, and to be unable to get either. Neither of these returnings was very pleasant or desirable: no magnet drew me to a given point, increasing in its strength of attraction the nearer I came. The return to Thornfield was yet to be tried. — Charlotte Bronte

... bleak, wind-swept fens and moors; empty fields with broken walls and gates hanging off their hinges; a black, ruined church; an open grave; a suicide buried at a lonely crossroads; a fire of bones blazing in the twilit snow; a gallows with a man swinging from its arm; another man crucified upon a wheel; an ancient spear plunged into the mud with a strange talisman, like a little leather finger, hanging from it; a scarecrow whose black rags blew about so violently in the wind that he seemed about to leap into the grey air and fly towards you on vast black wings ... — Susanna Clarke

Enthusiasm is as good a thing in the Church as fire is in a cook stove. — Billy Sunday

My grandfather seemed to me stricken and afflicted, and indeed he was, like a man everlastingly struck by lightening, so that there was an ashiness about his clothes and his hair never settled and his eye had a look of tragic alarm when he wasn't actually sleeping. He was the most unreposeful human being I ever knew, except for certain of his friends. All of them could sit on their heels into their old age, and they'd do it by preference, as if they had a grudge against furniture. They had no flesh on them at all. They were like the Hebrew prophets in some unwilling retirement, or like the primitive church still waiting to judge the angels ... It was the most natural thing in the world that my grandfather's grave would look like a place where someone had tried to smother a fire. — Marilynne Robinson

Give any orthodox church the power, and to-day they would punish heresy with whip, and chain, and fire. As long as a church deems a certain belief essential to salvation, just so long it will kill and burn if it has the power. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Love ... it ought to be at the center of all and everything we do in our own family, in our church callings, and our livelihood. Love is the healing balm that repairs rifts in personal and family relationships. It is the bond that unites families, communities and nations. love is the power that initiates friendship, tolerance, civility, and respect. It is the source that overcomes divisiveness and hate. Love is the fire that warms our lives with unparalleled joy and divine hope. Love should be our walk and our talk. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Damn it. I mean, darn it. I thought the church was on fire. I'm so sorry. How do you clean up holy water? Is it like communion? Do you have to lick it off the floor? Can I help you? — Debra Anastasia

God has decreed troubles for the church's good. The troubles of God's church is like the angel's troubling the water, which made way for healing his people. John 5: 4. He has decreed troubles in the church. 'His fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.' Isa 31: 9. The wheels in a watch move cross one to another, but they all carry on the motion of the watch; so the wheels of Providence often move cross to our desires, but still they carry on God's unchangeable decree. — Thomas Watson

The stranger did not go to church, and indeed made no difference between Sunday and the irreligious days, even in costume. He worked, as Mrs. Hall thought, very fitfully. Some days he would come down early and be continuously busy. On others he would rise late, pace his room, fretting audibly for hours together, smoke, sleep in the armchair by the fire. Communication with the world beyond the village he had none. His temper continued very uncertain; for the most part his manner was that of a man suffering under almost unendurable provocation, and once or twice things were snapped, torn, crushed, or broken in spasmodic gusts of violence. He seemed under a chronic irritation of the greatest intensity. His habit of talking to himself in a low voice grew steadily upon him, but though Mrs. Hall listened conscientiously she could make neither head nor tail of what she heard. — H.G.Wells

That evening Mr. Utterson came home to his bachelor house in sombre spirits and sat down to dinner without relish. It was his custom of a Sunday, when this meal was over, to sit close by the fire, a volume of some dry divinity on his reading-desk, until the clock of the neighbouring church rang out the hour of twelve, when he would go soberly and gratefully to bed. On this night, however, as soon as the cloth was taken away, he took up a candle and went into his business-room. There he opened his safe, took from the most private part of it a document endorsed on the envelope as Dr. Jekyll's Will, and sat down with a clouded brow to study its contents. The will was holograph, for Mr. Utterson, though he took charge of it now that — Robert Louis Stevenson

Give heed to the cause of the holy Roman Church, mother of all churches and teacher of the faith, whom you by the order of God, have consecrated by your blood. Against the Roman Church, you warned, lying teachers are rising, introducing ruinous sects, and drawing upon themselves speedy doom. Their tongues are fire, a restless evil, full of deadly poison. They have bitter zeal, contention in their hearts, and boast and lie against the truth. — Pope Leo X

Goodwill. If anyone maintain that men ought to be compelled by fire and sword to profess certain doctrines, and conform to this or that exterior worship, without any regard had unto their morals; if anyone endeavour to convert those that are erroneous unto the faith, by forcing them to profess things that they do not believe and allowing them to practise things that the Gospel does not permit, it cannot be doubted indeed but such a one is desirous to have a numerous assembly joined in the same profession with himself; but that he principally intends by those means to compose a truly Christian Church is altogether incredible. — John Locke

At a time when most of my peers were struggling to find an identity, I knew exactly who I was: the church girl, the girl who always had a place in her youth group family, the girl on fire for God. I'm not sure I can ever calculate the value of that community, that sense of belonging and of being loved. It never even occurred to me that such a fire could be washed out. — Rachel Held Evans

There is no power like that of prevailing prayer - of Abraham pleading for Sodom, Jacob wrestling in the stillness of the night, Moses standing in the breach, Hannah intoxicated with sorrow, David heartbroken with remorse and grief, Jesus in sweat and blood. Add to this list from the records of the church your personal observation and experience, and always there is cost of passion unto blood. Such prayer prevails. It turns ordinary mortals into men of power. It brings power. It brings fire. It brings rain. It brings life. It brings God. — Samuel Chadwick

While we were walking around, we came to the Catholic church, and we saw that some people had set fire to carpets and banked them around the rectory, which was made out of wood. They knew every fire truck on the South Side was going to be in the park, that the rectory would just burn to the ground. Our one little act was putting out that fire. — Sara Paretsky

The thoughts from a finite mind can at times be very similar to the clouds that move about over the surface of the earth. Both can cover a lot of ground, and can either disperse or increase in formation. Likewise - both are heavily influenced by the surrounding climate. Furthermore - a hard wind increases a fire's spread, thunder proceeds a lightning strike, and when atmospheric water vapor accumulates, it produces clouds. Then, after an abundance of water has been condensed, the clouds will at some point release moisture; the rain/precipitation amount will range from the degree of abundance condensed.
Similarly: an abundance of thoughts can also accumulate - eventually resulting in an overflow of emotion. The overflow can either be positive or negative - the determining factor relying on the characterization of the thoughts - whether they be positive or negative. — Calvin W. Allison

But if at church they would give some ale. And a pleasant fire our souls to regale. We'd sing and we'd pray all the live long day, Nor ever once from the church to stray. — William Blake

When sinners are careless and stupid, and sinking into hell unconcerned, it is time the church should bestir themselves. It is as much the duty of the church to awake, as it is for the firemen to awake when a fire breaks out in the night in a great city. — Charles Grandison Finney

She broke into sobs, and turned her back to him. It would almost have won round any man but Angel Clare. Within the remote depths of his constitution, so gentle and affectionate as he was in general, there lay hidden a hard logical deposit, like a vein of metal in a soft loam, which turned the edge of everything that attempted to traverse it. It had blocked his acceptance of the Church; it blocked his acceptance of Tess. Moreover, his affection itself was less fire than radiance, and, with regard to the other sex, when he ceased to believe he ceased to follow: contrasting in this with many impressionable natures, who remain sensuously infatuated with what they intellectually despise. He waited till her sobbing ceased. — Thomas Hardy

There was nothing else to do but call upon the Creator,
praying, begging, pleading, bargaining - anything to make
him protect Xavier. I couldn't have him ripped away from
me like that. I could survive emotional turmoil; I could
survive the most intense physical torture. I could survive
Armageddon and holy fire raining down upon the earth, but I
could not survive without him. — Alexandra Adornetto

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

Men ablaze are invincible. Hell trembles when men kindle. The stronghold of Satan is proof against everything but fire. The Church is powerless without the flame of the Holy Ghost. Destitute of fire, nothing else really counts; possessed of fire, nothing else really matters. The one vital need is fire. Without the flame and fervour of the Holy Ghost the Church will never accomplish its mission. — Samuel Chadwick

She holds every dress briefly by its shoulders like it's a schoolkid she's checking out for smudges before church. Then one by one they get flung away from her and into the fire. — Mary Karr

In the church today, we are falling prey to the appeal of "New!" The old truths of the gospel don't seem spectacular enough. We're restless for the latest, greatest, newest teaching or technique. We pastors in particular seem to search for a shortcut or some dynamic new strategy that will fire up our churches. — Jim Cymbala

Today too, as at her origins, the Church ... cries out:"Veni, Sancte Spiritus! Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of your love!" Amen. — Pope Francis

The Most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, also Jews, heretics, and schismatics can ever be partakers of eternal life, but that they are to go into the eternal fire 'which was prepared for the devil and his angels' (Mt. 25:41) unless before death they are joined with Her ... No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ can be saved unless they abide within the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church. — Pope Eugene IV

More often than not, we want him to have fairy wings and spread fairy dust and shine like a precious little star, dispensing nothing but good times on everyone, like some kind of hybrid of Tinker Bell and Aladdin's Genie. But the God of the Bible, this God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, is a pillar of fire and a column of smoke. — Matt Chandler

The Church exists by mission, just as a fire exists by burning. Where there is no mission there is no Church; and where there is neither Church nor mission, there is no faith. — Emil Brunner

The Church exists by mission as fire exists by burning. — Emil Brunner

Dr. Y. Hiraiwa, professor of Hiroshima University of Literature and Science, and one of my church members, was buried by the bomb under the two storied house with his son, a student of Tokyo University. Both of them could not move an inch under tremendously heavy pressure. And the house already caught fire. His son said, 'Father, we can do nothing except make our mind up to consecrate our lives for the country. Let us give Banzai to our Emperor.' Then the father followed after his son, 'Tenno-heika, Banzai, Banzai, Banzai!' . . . In thinking of their experience of that time Dr. Hiraiwa repeated, 'What a fortunate that we are Japanese! It was my first time I ever tasted such a beautiful spirit when I decided to die for our Emperor. — John Hersey

We do not admit the authority of the church with respect to its pretended infallibility, its manufactured miracles, its setting itself up to forgive sins. It was by propagating that belief and supporting it with fire that she kept up her temporal power. — Thomas Paine

I have taken this step because I want the discipline, the fire and the authority of the Church. I am hopelessly unworthy of it, but I hope to become worthy. — Edith Sitwell

I took Jack his slippers this evening and lay at his feet before a roaring fire while he smoked his pipe, sipped sherry, and read the newspaper. He read aloud everything involving killings, arsons, mutilations, grave robberies, church desecrations, and unusual thefts. It is very pleasant just being domestic sometimes. — Roger Zelazny

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

There is plenty of other evidence, however, that the nominal conversion of the Roman Empire to the Christian religion had effected no visible improvement in the common morals. The world was worse rather than better. Out of its besetting temptations men fled to save their souls. They fled from the world, which in the first century was believed by the Christians to be doomed, and liable to be destroyed by divine fire before the end of the year, and which in the fourth century was believed by the Christians to be damned: it belonged to the devil. They fled also from the church, which they accused of secularity and of hypocrisy. Many of the monks were laymen, who in deep disgust had forsaken the services and sacraments. They said their own prayers and sought God in their own way, asking no aid from priests. They were men who had resolved never to go to church again. — George Hodges

The Church squashed in blood Albigensian and Arian heresies, destroyed Druids and other non-Christian cults in Europe, baptized Slavs and Balts by fire and sword; do you think it wouldn't have been able to eliminate the Jews if it had wished to? The concept of 'racial segregation' was totally foreign to Christianity — Israel Shamir

At the county level, gentlemen controlled the distribution of justice and charity in their roles as justices of the peace and could hire and fire pastors at will from their seats on the church vestry. One newcomer recalled a gentleman's warning him "against disobliging or offending any person of note in the Colony [because] either by blood or marriage we are almost all related and so connected in our interests that whoever of a stranger presumes to offend any one of us will infallibly find an enemy of the whole."15 — Colin Woodard

No one has ever been accused for not providing ornaments, but for those who neglect their neighbour a hell awaits with an inextinguishable fire and torment in the company of the demons. Do not, therefore, adorn the church and ignore your afflicted brother, for he is the most precious temple of all. — Saint John Chrysostom

So I've been thinking. Do you believe there's a hell?"
"Sure. Doesn't everybody?"
"Well, what if this is hell, but we just don't know it?"
"That's crazy. Hell is like lakes of fire, and there are devils with horns and pitchforks. here's none of those around here."
"But what if hell's not really like that?" Grace asked.
"Everyone says it's that way," I said.
"I don't think Jesus every talked about fire and brimstone."
"Then why do they teach us that at church?"
"To scare us."
"Why would they want to scare us?"
"I don't know. I just don't think God wants us to do good things because we're scared. I think he wants us to do good things because we're good. — Richard Paul Evans

I owe everything to the gift of Pentecost. For fifty days the facts of the Gospel were complete, but no conversions were recorded. Pentecost registered three thousand souls. It is by fire that a holy passion is kindled in the soul whereby we live the life of God. The soul's safety is in its heat. Truth without enthusiasm, morality without emotion, ritual without soul, make for a Church without power. — Samuel Chadwick

There ought to be such an atmosphere in every Christian church that a man going there and sitting two hours should take the contagion of heaven, and carry home a fire to kindle the altar whence he came. — Henry Ward Beecher

I know that with consecration on the part of believers, separation from the world, disentanglement from enslaving sins, and a mighty baptism of the Holy Spirit, the church would become a conquering power in the world, not by its constructed theology, not by its Sabbath services, not by its arguments to convince the intellect, but by its simple story of Jesus' love, by the Cross, the Cross
God's hammer, God's fire. — Abbott Eliot Kittredge

Each restorational advancement of the Army of the Lord has established denominational forts that are given responsibility to maintain the purity and power of that truth ... New recruits are now being drafted and trained and older soldiers and generals are being put through intensified training for the next advancement of the Church Army. They are being purified by the Baptism of Fire ... Are you ready? Where do you start? What will you do? A new government must be established, a new way of life for those millions of people. You are now ready to rule and reign on your overcomer's throne! — Bill Hamon

The church for too long has followed Casper, the friendly ghost instead of seeking the fire of the Holy Spirit. We have turned limp at the thought of our own cross; we faint when we think of suffering or sacrifice. Beloved, it is time to embrace the fire of God's Presence. It is the fire that purifies our sacrifice. — Francis Frangipane

As she left the church, shaking her head, she heard Cole saying Kyle's name again and again. It was like he'd just discovered fire, and Kyle was the main ingredient. — Debra Anastasia

As I look around on Sunday morning at the people populating the pews, I see the risk that God has assumed. For whatever reason, God now reveals himself in the world not through a pillar of smoke and fire, not even through the physical body of his Son in Galilee, but through the mongrel collection that comprises my local church and every other such gathering in God's name. (p. 68, Church: Why Bother?) — Philip Yancey

We are insisting and we will continue to insist that this faith of the church must continue to be upheld come rain, come fire. That is our position. — Peter Akinola

In light of his criticism, maybe we need to reevaluate Jesus' commendation - and look more closely at our own church and our own lives. The church at Ephesus was a hardworking church, but without the hot fire of love for Christ, their work was simply a performance. The services were well planned, the pews were packed, and the pastor's sermons were polished, but Jesus says, "I miss the love you had at first." He misses the extravagance of love poured out; he misses the spontaneous expressions of praise; he misses the full sacrifice of their hearts. The ministry at the Ephesian church in your neighborhood is very impressive, but Jesus is not pleased. — Douglas Connelly

Why, then, does this burning zeal for God, for the Church, and for the salvation of souls - burning I say, literally, with fire and faggot - pass by those moral vices and wickednesses, without any chastisement, which are acknowledged by all men to be diametrically opposite to the profession of Christianity, and bend all its nerves either to the introducing of ceremonies, or to the establishment of opinions, which for the most part are about nice and intricate matters, that exceed the capacity of ordinary understandings? — John Locke

He had been the pastor of Tate's church since Tate's boys were in high school
probably over ten years now. Tate thought he was a fair man with a good heart. It helped that his sermons were interesting and not fire and brimstone like the guy they'd had before him. Tate understood too well the repercussions of his sin. He went to church to hear about hope, to be encouraged. That was a thing Mitch seemed naturally born to
encouraging others. — Vannetta Chapman

I have had a most shameful and distressing interview with poor dear Tom Eliot, who may be called dead to us all from this day forward. He has become an Anglo-Catholic, believes in God and immortality, and goes to church. I was really shocked. A corpse would seem to me more credible than he is. I mean, there's something obscene in a living person sitting by the fire and believing in God. — Virginia Woolf

The spontaneous expansion of the Church reduced to its elements is a very simple thing ... What is necessary is faith. What is needed is the kind of faith which uniting a man to Christ, sets him on fire. — Roland Allen

Prayer is spiritual breathing; when we pray we breathe in the Holy Spirit; praying in the Holy Spirit (Jd. 1:20). Thus, all church prayers are the breathing of the Holy Spirit; as it were spiritual air and also light, spiritual fire, spiritual food and spiritual raiment. — John Of Kronstadt

In the church of my heart the choir is on fire — Vladimir Mayakovsky

It argued a special genius; he was clearly a case of that. The spark of fire, the point of light, sat somewhere in his inward vagueness as a lamp before a shrine twinkles in the dark perspective of a church; and while youth and early middle-age, while the stiff American breeze of example and opportunity were blowing upon it hard, had made the chamber of his brain a strange workshop of fortune. This establishment, mysterious and almost anonymous, the windows of which, at hours of highest pressure, never seemed, for starers and wonderers, perceptibly to glow, must in fact have been during certain years the scene of an unprecedented, a miraculous white-heat, the receipt for producing which it was practically felt that the master of the forge could not have communicated even with the best intentions. — Henry James

Father in heaven, we confess to you that we don't pray as we ought. Ignite our hearts with the fiery darts of your Spirit to enable us to pray. Create in us a life of unceasing prayer. Stoke the fire of prayer in our church to a new intensity so that we are changed, as well as the people around us. Jesus, we lift up your name; we plead with you to draw people to yourself. Turn our church around for your glory, now and forevermore! In Jesus' name. Amen. — Kevin G. Harney

It is easy to think that the Church has a lot of different objects - education, building, missions, holding services. Just as it is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects - military, political, economic, and what not. But in a way things are much simpler than that. The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden - that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time. In the same way the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. — C.S. Lewis

In September 1968, Rush played for around 20 people at a small hall in a church basement. We played songs like 'Spoonful,' 'Fire' and 'Born Under a Bad Sign,' and got paid $10. Then we went to a nearby deli and ordered Cokes and French fries and started planning our future. — Alex Lifeson

The fire of God comes where ever there is a sacrifice. — John Paul Warren

....One dark night,
my Tudor Ford climbed the hill's skull;
I watched for love-cars. Lights turned down,
they lay together, hull to hull,
where the graveyard shelves on the town. . . .
My mind's not right.

A car radio bleats,
"Love, O careless Love. . . ." I hear
my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell,
as if my hand were at its throat. . . .
I myself am hell;
nobody's here--

only skunks, that search
in the moonlight for a bite to eat.
They march on their soles up Main Street:
white stripes, moonstruck eyes' red fire
under the chalk-dry and spar spire
of the Trinitarian Church.

I stand on top
of our back steps and breathe the rich air--
a mother skunk with her column of kittens swills the garbage pail.
She jabs her wedge-head in a cup
of sour cream, drops her ostrich tail,
and will not scare. — Robert Lowell

Under pressure, people admit to murder, setting fire to the village church or robbing a bank, but never to being bores. — Elsa Maxwell