Church Service Quotes & Sayings

T]he church is not a place. It's not a building. It's not a preaching point. It's not a spiritual service provider. It's a people - the new covenant, blood-bought people of God. That's why Paul said, 'Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her' (Eph. 5:25). He didn't give himself up for a place, but for a people. — Mark Dever

The point of our service in the church isn't how much we do and how important we are. The point is whether or not we're taking our place in the synchronized dance that God is orchestrating. When each one takes their assigned role, the design is fabulous! When one wants to do their own thing, needing attention, wanting to hog the show, or playing to the crowd, disaster ensues. — Carolyn Tennant

The ritual is designed to get a group of people through the hour without having to get close to anyone. They may, but they don't have to. It is more comfortable to go to a High Church Mass than to attend a revival service where one may be asked, "Are you saved, brother?" Sexual relations are less awkward in the dark for people for whom physical intimacy has no involvement at the level of personality. There is less chance for involvement in throwing a cocktail party than in having a dinner for six. There is little commitment, therefore little fulfillment. Rituals, like withdrawal, can keep us apart. An — Thomas A. Harris

In so far as the church nurtures the schizophrenic Christian, the church herself contributes to the very process of dismemberment which it is her specific business to check and counter. For the church's function is properly to reconstitute the concept and the reality of the fill man, faculties, and forces blended and united in the service of God. The church's mission as the continuing vehicle of divine incarnation is precisely that- to build and rebuild the unified Body made and remade in the image of the Father. The mind of man must be won for God. — Harry Blamires

A friend and I prepared a video clip once for a worship service. Our goal was to capture people's responses to the word Christian, so we took a video camera and hit the streets, from the trendy arts district to the suburbs. We asked people to say the first word that came to mind in response to each word we said: "snow," "eagles" (it's Philly), "teenagers," and finally "Christian." When people heard the word Christian, they stopped in their tracks. I will never forget their responses: "fake," "hypocrites," "church," "boring." One guy even said, "used-to-be-one" (sort of one word). I will also never forget what they didn't say. Not one of the people we asked that day said "love." No one said "grace." No one said "community. — Shane Claiborne

Sunday was the normal day for the political awareness session at sea. Ordinarily Putin would have officiated, reading some Pravada editorials, followed by selected quotations from the works of Lenin and a discussion of the lessons to be learned from the readings. It is very much like a church service. — Tom Clancy

I give money for church organs in the hope the organ music will distract the congregation's attention from the rest of the service. — Andrew Carnegie

There was no hastiness or anger in his response. He did not take the disobedience personally. He had trained many horses and mules and knew the value of patient perseverance. In the end, the twelve-month-old submitted his will to his father, sat as he was placed, and became content - even cheerful. He was now ready to quietly sit through three hours of the most boring church service a sleeping patriarch ever attended. — Michael Pearl

It is impossible to stand still in Christian life and service, for when you stand still, you immediately start going backward. "Let us go on!" is God's challenge to His church (Heb. 6:1), and that means moving ahead into new territory. — Warren W. Wiersbe

Fewer and fewer people are attracted to the church service and more and more people are attracted to the service of the church. — Reggie McNeal

I find that I keep offering God my service when what He wants is my fellowship — John Paul Warren

A person's faith goes at its own pace. The trouble with church is the service. A service is conducted for a mass audience. Just when I start to like the hymn, everyone plops down to pray. Just when I start to hear the prayer, everyone pops up to sing. And what does the stupid sermon have to do with God? Who knows what God thinks of current events? Who cares? — John Irving

Worship is not a twenty minute period during a church service, but a lifestyle of relating to God in a particular way. — Mike Bickle

I find attempts to create bilingual gospels laughable, in particular the attempt to translate the service from Church Slavonic into Russian. What for? In order not to make the effort and not to learn the divine, if somewhat artificial but solemn, language specially carved for this purpose? This language also provides a link with a tradition which is realized at depths and which the modern Russian language cannot plumb. — Lyudmila Ulitskaya

If these hands, used to fighting, would be acceptable to His Holiness, we most thankfully dedicate them to the service of him who deserves so well of the Church and of the fatherland. — Giuseppe Garibaldi

My hope and prayer for all who read this book is a reformation - that an army of African-American men will make their way back into the church, back into the leadership of the church, back into leading a change in the church to be and do what it is called to be and do, so that we may have power to do good for our people, and people all over the world, in a way that no government or service organization has been or will be able to do, and that no one will be able to take away. — Eric Redmond

The fact is, most people come to faith through the influence of family members, small-group Bible studies, or a conversation with a friend after a church service: Christians intentionally talking about the gospel. — J. Mack Stiles

The most dangerous type of atheism is not theoretical atheism, but practical atheism -that's the most dangerous type. And the world, even the church, is filled up with people who pay lip service to God and not life service. And there is always a danger that we will make it appear externally that we believe in God when internally we don't. We say with our mouths that we believe in him, but we live with our lives like he never existed. That is the ever-present danger confronting religion. That's a dangerous type of atheism. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Let me ever love Thyself more than Thy service. — Howard Carter

The church's job is to equip the saints for works of service in the world. — Charles Colson

My visit to England is a memorable event in my life, from the fact of my having there received strong, religious impressions. The contemptuous manner in which the communion had been administered to colored people in my native place; the church membership of Dr. Flint and others like him; and the buying and selling of slaves, by professed ministers of the gospel, had given me a prejudice against the Episcopal church. The whole service seemed to me a mockery and a sham. But my home in Steventon was in the home of a clergyman, who was a true disciple of Jesus. The beauty of his daily life inspired me with faith in the genuineness of Christian professions. Grace entered my heart, and I knelt at the communion table, I trust, in true humility of soul. — Harriet Jacobs

I have now been an officer in this Church for a very long time. I am an old man who cannot deny the calendar. I have lived long enough and served in enough different capacities to have removed from my mind, if such were necessary, any doubt of the divinity of this, the work of God. We respect those of other churches. We desire their friendship and hope to render meaningful service with them. We know they all do good, but we unabashedly state - and this frequently brings criticism upon us - that this is the true and living Church of our Father in Heaven and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Sweetheart," Bill said formally, "I have always loved you, and I will be proud to die in your service. When I'm gone, say a prayer for me in a real church. — Charlaine Harris

It has come to be a dreadfully common belief in the Christian Church that the only man who has a "call" is the man who devotes all his time to what is called "the ministry," whereas all Christian service is ministry, and every Christian has a call to some kind of ministry or another. — Charles Spurgeon

Service is an imperative for those who worship Jesus Christ and a covenant obligation of those who belong to his Church. — Dallin H. Oaks

The church, although lapsing more and more into deflection from the truth and into a corrupting of apostolic practice, had not instrumental music for 1200 years (that is, it was not in general use before this time); The Calvinistic Reform Church ejected it from its service as an element of popery, even the church of England having come very nigh its extrusion from her worship. It is heresy in the sphere of worship. — John Lafayette Girardeau

Did you see the picture of Roy Rogers's horse attending a church service in Pasadena? I forgot whether his name was Tex or Trigger but he was dressed fit to kill and looked like he was having a good time. He doubled the usual attendance. — Flannery O'Connor

Then alone, of all church gatherings, is there something of that peace which is the promise and the end of the Church. The mind and the heart purged then, if it is ever to be; the week and its whatever disasters finished and summed and expiated by the stern and formal fury of the morning service; the next week and its whatever disasters not yet born, the heart quiet now for a little while beneath the cool soft blowing of faith and hope. — William Faulkner

Sunday morning church service is not an enormous priority; spending time with other believers is. — Donald Miller

So do you want to make culture? Find a community, a small group who can lovingly fuel your dreams and puncture your illusions. Find friends and form a family who are willing to see grace at work in one another's lives, who can discern together which gifts and which crosses each has been called to bear. Find people who have a holy respect for power and a holy willingness to spend their power alongside the powerless. Find some partners in the wild and wonderful world beyond church doors. And then, together, make something of the world. — Andy Crouch

Surely those who know the great passionate heart of Jehovah must deny their own loves to share in the expression of His. Consider the call from the Throne above, "Go ye," and from round about, "Come over and help us," and even the call from the damned souls below, "Send Lazarus to my brothers, that they come not to this place." Impelled, then, by these voices, I dare not stay home while Quichuas perish. So what if the well-fed church in the homeland needs stirring? They have the Scriptures, Moses, and the Prophets, and a whole lot more. Their condemnation is written on their bank books and in the dust on their Bible covers. American believers have sold their lives to the service of Mammon, and God has His rightful way of dealing with those who succumb to the spirit of Laodicea. — Jim Elliot

I often heard this melodious hymn again in days of hardship, and it always affected me painfully. Not as the reproachful warning clang of church bells ringing for service, when I pass a church door without going in, but because the men sang the hymn only when they were out of spirits and considered our position desperate. It seemed as though they would remind me that defeat awaited me, and that this time I had aimed too high. — Sven Hedin

Standing in fron of the doors of a cCatholic church when service is over is a good way to die young. — Dia Reeves

I hope the day will never come when the church abandons the "class meeting" and the prayer service ... The old-fashioned "testimony" meeting should be revived, for through this medium we can share with others our faith and triumphs as well as our needs and mistakes. — Billy Graham

Perhaps the Lord has called me and preserved me for this service not because I am particularly fit for it, or so that I can govern and rescue the Church from her present difficulties, but so that I can suffer something for the Church, and in that way it will be clear that he, and no other, is her guide and saviour — Pope Paul VI

As with every aspect of our sanctification, the renewal of the mind may be painful and difficult. It requires hard work and discipline, inspired by a sacrificial love for Christ and a burning desire to build up His body, the Church. Developing a Christian worldview means submitting our entire self to God, in an act of devotion and service to Him. — Nancy Pearcey

The church is not a place where perfect people gather to say perfect things, or have perfect thoughts, or have perfect feelings. The Church is a place where imperfect people gather to provide encouragement, support, and service to each other as we press on in our journey to return to our Heavenly Father. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

On a blustery October night in a church outside Minneapolis, several hundred believers had gathered for a three-day seminar. I began with a one-hour presentation on the gospel of grace and the reality of Salvation. Using Scripture, story, symbolism, and personal experience, I focused on the total sufficiency of the redeeming work of Jesus Christ on Calvary. The service ended with a song and a prayer.
Leaving the church by a side door, the pastor turned to his associate and fumed, 'Humph, that airhead didn't say one thing about what we have to do to earn our salvation!'
Something is radically wrong. — Brennan Manning

About the same time I came in contact with another Christian family. At their suggestion I attended the Wesleyan church every Sunday. For these days I also had their standing invitation to dinner. The church did not make a favourable impression on me. The sermons seemed to be uninspiring. The congregation did not strike me as being particularly religious. They were not an assembly of devout souls; they appeared rather to be wordly-minded people, going to church for recreation and in conformity to custom. Here, at times, I would involuntarily doze. I was ashamed, but some of my neighbours, who were in no better case, lightened the shame. I could not go on long like this, and soon gave up attending the service. — Mahatma Gandhi

God wants to use you right where you are. Every day you probably come in contact with people who will never enter a church, or talk with a pastor, or open a Bible - and God wants to use you to point them to Christ. You may be the "bridge" God would use to bring them to Himself. — Billy Graham

DEAR GOD, if I survive this near-death experience, I will:
-Well, I already go to church every Sunday
- I do a fair share of community service
-I help organize fundraisers
God, you owe me big time — Hasti Williams

If you leave the church service thinking about how good the pastor was, he has missed the mark. If you leave consumed with Christ, the pastor has been used by the Lord. — Howard G. Hendricks

To great sections of the Church the art of worship has been lost entirely, and in its place has come that strange and foreign thing called the "program." This word has been borrowed from the stage and applied with sad wisdom to the type of public service which now passes for worship among us. — A.W. Tozer

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

The Church is or should go back to being a community of God's people, and priests, pastors and bishops, who have the care of souls, are at the service of the people of God. — Pope Francis

You don't go to church to find God; you bring him with you - attitude. — Shannon L. Alder

The late Rev. Peter Gomes at The Memorial Church at Harvard was a true mentor to me when I was in college. He instilled in me a commitment to service, saying that it's not enough to believe in service, or support those who serve-you ought to find a way yourself to serve. When I looked at different options after college, nobody inspired me more than the 18- and 19-year-olds who serve on the front lines of our nation's military. Serving with them in the Marines as we together served our country was the greatest honor of my life to date. — Seth Moulton

Praise and worship shouldn't be a few hour church service entertainment. It should be our heartbeat and should never depart our lips. 'Let us come before him with thanks giving and extol him with music and song' (Psalms 95:2). — Euginia Herlihy

My uncle Ernie didn't believe in God.
At least that's what he said. But he always
Went to church on Christmas. Which I thought
Seriously compromised his atheism. — Eugene H. Peterson

The Eucharist is the secret of my day. It gives strength and meaning to all my activities of service to the Church and to the whole world ... Let Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament speak to your hearts. It is he who is the true answer of life that you seek. He stays here with us: he is God with us. Seek him without tiring, welcome him without reserve, love him without interruption: today, tomorrow, forever. — Pope John Paul II

I produced a fulsome sermon. When the appointed Sunday arrived, I used all of my best grooming skills. I picked the cat hairs off my most expensive suit, smoothed my hair, and put a Band-aid on the thumb I had chewed while working overtime on my sermon. Once I met the delegation at church I did my best to dazzle them, and after the service was over we sat for almost two hours in a Sunday School room as I answered question after question about my history, my beliefs, my weaknesses, and my strengths. One man on the committee noticed the Band-aid on my thumb. "What did you do to yourself?" he asked sympathetically. "I cut it while I was cooking, "I lied. — Barbara Brown Taylor

I do not like a high-organized church. I think that as soon as the congregation reaches a level of one hundred or so people, it is time to build a new church. As soon as the congregation gets to the point where you are not on fairly intimate terms with every other person in that church, then you have become a theater where people can attend services. I do not think you can attend a church service. Service is not something which is there to be viewed as if it were a play or a movie. — Charles M. Schulz

We forget everything: the books we read, the temples of Japan, the tombs of Luxor, the airline queues, our own foolishness. And so we gradually return to identifying happiness with elsewhere: twin rooms overlooking a harbour, a hilltop church boasting the remains of the Sicilian martyr St Agatha, a palm-fringed bungalow with complimentary evening buffet service. We recover an appetite for packing, hoping and screaming. We will need to go back and learn the important lessons of the airport all over again soon. — Anonymous

Most of us would agree that the important thing about Jesus is not his supposed miraculous birth or the claim that he was resurrected from death, but rather how he lived. The power of his love, the penetrating simplicity of his teachings, and the force of his example of service on behalf of the disenfranchised and downtrodden are what is crucial. — Forrest Church

It's because of you that I can go to any church and take whatever the service has to offer, all of it up for interpretation except kindness. — Mary-Louise Parker

For her part, the Church always works for the integral development of every person. In this sense, she reiterates that the common good should not be simply an extra, simply a conceptual scheme of inferior quality tacked onto political programmes. The Church encourages those in power to be truly at the service of the common good of their peoples. — Pope Francis

My Lord, I have nothing to do in this World, but to seek and serve thee; I have nothing to do with a Heart and its affections, but to breathe after thee. I have nothing to do with my Tongue and Pen, but to speak to thee, and for thee, and to publish thy Glory and thy Will. What have I to do with all my Reputation, and Interest in my Friends, but to increase thy Church, and propagate thy holy Truth and Service? What have I to do with my remaining Time, even these last and languishing hours, but to look up unto thee, and wait for thy Grace, and thy Salvation? — Richard Baxter

It was a strange feeling going into a church I did not know for a service that I did not really believe in, but once inside I couldn't help a feeling of warmth and security. Outside there were wars and road accidents and murders, striptease clubs and battered babies and frayed tempers and unhappy marriages and people contemplating suicide and bad jokes, but once in St. Martin's there was peace. Surely people go to church not to involve themselves in the world's problems but to escape from them. — Michael Palin

You may have confidence in the Lord's service. The Savior will help you do what He has called you to do, be it for a time as a worker in the Church or forever as a parent. You may pray for help enough to do the work and know that it will come. — Henry B. Eyring

I know the celestial criteria measure service, not status; the use of our talents, not the relative size of our talent inventories. I know that Church membership is not passive security but continuing opportunity. — Neal A. Maxwell

The Church is the Church only when it exists for others ... not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live for Christ, to exist for others. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I therefore used the last ten minutes of our classes to recite with them words from the Bible and verses from hymns, so that they would know them and the words would stay with them throughout their lives. The aim of my teaching was to bring to their hearts and thoughts the great truths of the Gospels so religion would have meaning in their lives and give them the strength to resist the irreligious forces that might assail them. I also tried to awaken in them a love for the Church, and a desire for that hour of spiritual peace to be found in the Sunday service. I taught them to respect traditional doctrines, but at the same time to hold fast to the saying of Paul that where the spirit of Christ is, there is freedom. — Albert Schweitzer

What is sure is what God has revealed. With that we can start our exploration. In our exploring what is sure is that what the Church has defined is true, what the Church has condemned is false: Christ established a Church that could do us this essential service. For most of us, exploration will be only the effort to understand as much as is thus certain. And it is immensely rewarding. — Frank Sheed

Just as the medieval church cut off the congregation from participating in the sung worship of the service, today many well-meaning Christian leaders have reconstructed a sung worship wherein congregational participation does not matter. — Douglas Bond

If you are called upon to play a church service, it is a greater honor than if you were to play a concert on the finest organ in the world ... Thank God each time when you are privileged to sit before the organ console and assist in the worship of the Almighty. — Albert Schweitzer

This notion of the centrality of the church ... could hardly be more pertinent to the perennial question of "Christian culture" and our evaluation of the great figures such as Calvin and Kuyper. Hearing the words "Christian culture" may evoke visions of godly emperors, medieval Madonnas, or Bach cantatas. None of which are really about the church. Or perhaps the phrase "Christian culture" resonates with contemporary Reformed buzzwords like "world and life view," "transformation," and "kingdom vision"
all of which, I fear, are often enlisted in the service of convincing Reformed youth that it is a mistake to think of the church as central to the Christian life. — David VanDrunen

Those who think that a woman detained at home by her little family is doing nothing, think the reverse of what is true. Scarcely can the godly mother quit her home for a place of worship; but dream not that she is lost to the work of the church; far from it, she is doing the best possible service for her Lord. Mothers, the godly training of your offspring is your first and most pressing duty. — Charles Spurgeon

The proclamation of the Gospel remains the primary service that the Church owes to humanity, to offer the salvation of Christ to the man of our time, who is in many ways humiliated and oppressed, and to orientate in a Christian way cultural, social, and ethical transformations that are unfolding in the world. — Pope Benedict XVI

I remember the Inquisition, when pain in service to the church was raised to an art form. — James Rollins

Proclamation, the preaching of the Gospel, should be central to Christian worship. The sermon is the central dynamic in the worship experience. It is the fulcrum upon which the entire service of worship hinges. Everything that comes before it should point to it, and everything that comes after it should issue out of it. Because of this, the pastor is the worship leader of the church. In too many places and in too many circumstances, worship is only identified with something we do before the sermon. That is, we think the worship leader is one who leads choruses or spiritual songs. The dynamic of the worship experience is a complete package, and it is the sermon, the preaching of the Gospel, that must be central to it. It is the poastor himself who sets the tone for worship. — O. S. Hawkins

I wish more fantasy, especially the dominant fantasy that draws heavily on British and Christian lore, would wrestle with its own ethnospecific nature and what that means when the story is set somewhere where more than one belief system is in operation. If all you do is pay lip service to it, you can get the kind of thing where the writer has thrown one Hindu god into a Christianist fantasy (rendering said god by default a demon or otherwise inferior to the dominant religious system of the story, which is such an insult), and the hero is able to vanquish it by chanting a spell in church Latin. — Nalo Hopkinson

When women are restricted from the service of God in any capacity, the Church is mistakenly allowing an imperfect male-dominated ancient culture to drive our understanding and practice of Christ's redeeming work, instead of Jesus Christ and the whole of the Scriptures. — Sarah Bessey

[I]n 1919, 1920 and 1921, the whole Israelite press stormed the Romanian state unleashing everywhere chaos and exhorting to violence against the regime, the form of government, the Church, the Romanian order, the national idea, patriotism. Now, as if by magic (in 1936), the same press, led exactly by the same people, has turned into a protector of the state order and its laws, and declares itself 'against violence', and we have become the 'enemies of the country', the 'right-wing extremists', 'in the pay and in the service of the enemy of Romanicity', and, before long, we will hear even this: that we are sponsored by the Jews. — Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

If Your church says they want revival, check out their midweek prayer service. Someone may be lying — Joe Joe Dawson

In the conduct of our public worship where is the authority of Christ to be found? The truth is that today the Lord rarely controls a service, and the influence He exerts is very small. We sing of Him and preach about Him, but He must not interfere; we worship our way, and it must be right because we have always done it that way, as have the other churches in our group. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

No money, no church service, no eulogy,no funeral procession no matter how elaborate, can remove the legacy of a mean spirit. p 354 — Abraham Verghese

My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different trades. I was put to the grammar-school at eight years of age, my father intending to devote me, as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the Church. — Benjamin Franklin

I still love church. My favorite church service is T.D. Jakes at the Potter's House. I don't think there is a better preacher in the country. His ability to interpret scripture is like no other. — Oprah Winfrey

Where Christ's Spirit is, it will bring men from their altitudes and excellencies, and make them to stoop to serve the church, and account it an honour to be an instrument to do good. — Richard Sibbes

Negroes' problem is that they do not have their egos. That's why our churches end up having a white service, because our preacher is not arrogant enough to take God's word, so he have to go and get some white fellow's agenda and put it in his church. — Jesse Jackson

The first miracle after the baptism of the Holy Ghost was wroughtly upon a beggar. It means that the first service of a Holy Ghost-baptized church is to the poor; that its ministry is to those who are lowest down; that its gifts are for those who need them the most. As the Spirit was upon Jesus to preach the gospel to the poor, so His Spirit is upon His servants for the same purpose. — Phineas F. Bresee

In serving others, the church will save itself from becoming nothing more than a spiritualized 501c3 not-for-profit, self-centered corporation, organized for the benefit of donor tax exemption. Serving others will remind us of our identity and call us out from this self-absorbed, selfish world to be the people of God on a journey following his Son, Jesus. — Ronnie McBrayer

The jewels of spiritual service are always quarried in the depths of spiritual experience. Never is this more true than in revival. Bend the church and save the people. — Sinclair B. Ferguson

The second ceremony, are the musical instruments, which began to be used in the service of the church, in the time of Pope Vitalian, about the year 600 as Platina relates out of the Pontifical; or as Aimonius rather thinks in book iv. chapter 114, after the year 820, in the time of Lewis the Pious. — Robert Bellarmine

The Church is not an automobile showroom - a place to put ourselves on display so that others can admire our spirituality, capacity, or prosperity. It is more like a service center, where vehicles in need of repair come for maintenance and rehabilitation. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

It doesn't really matter how much of the rules or the dogma we accepted and lived by if we're not really living by the fundamental creed of the Catholic Church, which is service to others and finding God in ourselves and then seeing God in everyone - including our enemies. — Martin Sheen

tender, thoughtful and affectionate. Men are more helped by sympathy, than by service; love is more than money, and a kind word will give more pleasure than a present."[23] If you live by yourself, you may have to get creative in finding ways to express love extravagantly. While the people at your work may look askance at you if you suddenly start handing out hugs, it's almost always appropriate to shake hands or touch a shoulder or an elbow lightly. Certainly there are people at your church who will be receptive to a hug. If not, find a different church! Those who love lavishly, extravagantly, find their souls flooded with joy. — Kay Warren

The Sunday morning service shows how popular your church is. The evening services show how popular your pastor is. Your private prayer time shows you how popular God is! — Leonard Ravenhill

There is nothing better than to have a highly motivated team of leaders focused on than reaching those far from Christ. And yet statistics and our experience reveal that evangelism entropy can creep deep inside a new church within months of its first public service. The longer we are around new churches the more amazed we are at how quickly these mission-focused, vibrant new churches become old. — Gary Rohrmayer

I am not a religious man. I have not attended a service for many years. But I do believe in God. My own practice of religion, you could say, it a nonpractice. I personally feel that it's just as worthy on a weekend to rake the lawns of an elderly neighbor or to climb a mountain and marvel at the beauty of this land we live in as it is to sing hosannas or go to Mass. In other words, I think every many finds his own church- and not all of them have four walls - Judge Haig (Page 399) — Jodi Picoult

The fact that you are attending church does not mean you are already serving the Lord — Sunday Adelaja

Both learned and unlearned young men seldom go to church, and in general do not attend to their spiritual education, looking upon it as unnecessary and giving themselves up to worldly vanity. Attention must be paid to this. It is the fruit of pride ... They consider attendance at church and Divine service as the business of the common people and women, forgetting that, in the temple, Angels officiate with trembling, together with men, and regard this as their highest bliss. — John Of Kronstadt

All over America, churchgoers chafe at a Sunday morning service that runs an hour and ten minutes, but have no problem with three-hour football games on television. — Jim Cymbala

My religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative evolution. I desire that no public monument or work of art or inscription or sermon or ritual service commemorating me shall suggest that I accepted the tenets peculiar to any established church or denomination nor take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice.
[From the will of GBS] — George Bernard Shaw

"Do you love me?"; "Are you my friend?". The One who scrutinizes hearts (cf. Rom 8:27), makes himself a beggar of love and questions us on the one truly essential issue, a premiss and condition for feeding his sheep, his lambs, his Church. May every ministry be based on this intimacy with the Lord; living from him is the measure of our ecclesial service which is expressed in the readiness to obey, to humble ourselves, as we heard in the Letter to the Philippians, and for the total gift of self. — Pope Francis

An angel is a spiritual creature created by God without a body for the service of Christendom and the church. — Leo Rosten

In the seeker-church movement the emphasis away from the use and explication of creedal confession is obvious, since the whole point is to focus on the 'felt-needs' of the person in the pew - especially the felt-needs of nonbelievers. The rationale is that the church and its main service are evangelistic in nature. Because nonbelievers simply cannot penetrate the arcana of historic Christianity, the felt-needs of people become the point of entry into conversation with them. — James Davison Hunter

The majority of believers on this earth find it laughable that we could reduce the call to follow Jesus and make disciples to an invitation to sit in church service. — Francis Chan

Scriptural interpretation is properly an ecclesial activity whose goal is to participate in the reality of which the text speaks by bending the knee to worship the God revealed in Jesus Christ. Through Scripture the church receives the good news of the inbreaking kingdom of God and, in turn, proclaims the message of reconciliation. Scripture is like a musical score that must be played or sung in order to be understood; therefore, the church interprets Scripture by forming communities of prayer, service, and faithful witness. — Ellen F. Davis

Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance. Communion service is at all hours, and the bread and wine are from the heart and marrow of Mother Earth. There are no heretics in Nature's church; all are believers, all are communicants. The beauty of natural religion is that you have it all the time; you do not have to seek it afar off in myths and legends, in catacombs, in garbled texts, in miracles of dead saints or wine-bibbing friars. It is of today; it is now and here; it is everywhere. — John Burroughs