Clergy And Laity Quotes & Sayings

There is a long and well-documented tradition of wisdom in the Christian faith that any venture into leadership, whether by laity or clergy, is hazardous. it is necessary that there be leaders, but woe to those who become leaders. — Eugene H. Peterson

Today's aikido is so dimensionless. It's hollow, empty on the inside. People try to reach the highest levels without even paying their dues. That's why it seems so much like a dance these days. You have to master the very basics solidly, with your body, and then proceed to develop to the higher levels ... Now we see nothing but copying or imitation without any grasp of the real thing ... — Gozo Shioda

Among our own people also the church sorely needs clergy in close touch with the ordinary life of the laity, living the life of ordinary men, sharing their difficulties and understanding their trials by close personal experience. — Roland Allen

The clergy profession is fundamentally self-defeating. Its stated purpose is to nurture spiritual maturity in the church - a valuable goal. In actuality, however; it accomplishes the opposite by nurturing a permanent dependence of the laity on the clergy. Clergy become to their congregations like parents whose children never grow up, like therapists whose clients never become healed, like teachers whose students never graduate. — Christian Smith

And if happiness were common, it would preserve itself, because appeals to hatred and fear, which now constitute almost the whole of politics would fall flat. — Bertrand Russell

Pope Francis has aimed a blow at what the whole hierarchical system is built on: a graded system with the higher clergy in the skyboxes, the devoted religious in festival seating, as they say of the crowds at rock concerts, and, on the bottom, the laity in standing room only. — Eugene Kennedy

I looked at Finn, tempted to explain what had just happened, Bobby moving toward him, though I kept my mouth shut, in favor of trusting what I had learned this weekend, in the face of everything falling apart, and maybe coming together in a greater way than I could have hoped for. You couldn't always work so hard to fix it. Even if things didn't always go the way they should, sometimes they went exactly where they needed to" -Georgia — Laura Dave

I becan acting when River was doing this TV series and they needed two kids for the show, so they got me and my little sister, Summer, to do it. After that I did some really weird guest spots with orangutans and stuff. — Joaquin Phoenix

A missionary church cannot rely on the professional ministry for the primary work of mission. The role of the laity is critical because it is the lay members of the church who have the greatest contact with those who are outside of the normal structures of church life. In such a situation the task of clergy is not so much to engage in mission themselves, as to support the laity in their mission. — Martin Robinson

Conversations in the flesh are the first drafts toward the later conversations of the mind, where words and ideas are sorted and elaborated, recast. — Keith Miller

Winning means fame and fortune.
Losing means certain death.
The Hunger Games have begun ... — Suzanne Collins

They all attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country mainly to the separation of church and state. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America I did not
meet a single individual, of the clergy or the laity, who was not of the same opinion on this point. — Alexis De Tocqueville

During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. — James Madison

Evangelism is not a calling reserved exclusively for the clergy. I believe one of the greatest priorities of the church today is to mobilize the laity to do the work of evangelism. — Billy Graham

The problem is that, regardless of what our theologies tell us about the purpose of the clergy, the actual effect of the clergy profession is to make the body of Christ lame. This happens not because clergy intend it (they usually intend the opposite) but because the objective nature of the profession inevitably turns the laity into passive receivers. — Christian Smith

Every time you cry, your tears put out my candle. — Jackie Shemwell

Individualism. Narcissism. Value-free choices. These are all key elements in the decline of the practice of mutual accountability in Western churches, among clergy and laity alike. — David Augsburger

In principle, to be sure, the Reformation idea of the universal priesthood of all believers meant that not only the clergy but also the laity, not only the theologian but also the magistrate, had the capacity to read, understand, and apply the teachings of the Bible. Yet one of the contributions of the sacred philology of the biblical humanists to the Reformation was an insistence that, in practice, often contradicted the notion of the universal priesthood: the Bible had to be understood on the basis of the authentic original text, written in Hebrew and Greek which, most of the time, only clergy and theologians could comprehend properly. Thus the scholarly authority of the Reformation clergy replaced the priestly authority of the medieval clergy. — Jaroslav Pelikan

Humility is a virtue all men preach, none practice, and yet everybody is content to hear. The master thinks it good doctrine for his servants, the laity for the clergy, and the clergy for the laity. — John Selden

Although a science fair can seem like a big "pain" it can help you understand important scientific principles, such as Newton's First Law of Inertia, which states: "A body at rest will remain at rest until 8:45 p.m. the night before the science fair project is due, at which point the body will come rushing to the body's parents, who are already in their pajamas, and shout, 'I JUST REMEMBERED THE SCIENCE FAIR IS TOMORROW AND WE GOTTA GO TO THE STORE RIGHT NOW!'" — Dave Barry

The Church, rightly conceived, is the whole covenant people called to serve in the world. The clergy are also part of the laity, and their true function is to help equip the laity to be the Servant People. If they turn aside to rule and to secure their own status, they have betrayed the calling of the special ministry. — Franklin Littell

The biggest challenge for me, as an actor, is to be informed, prepared and focused, at the same time. I had to just keep on working, prepping, reading and imagining, all the way through, but the biggest challenge is always to let go of all that and just be open to others. That's what we do, as actor. We play with each other and we stimulate each other, and we have to be prepared to be stimulated by the other. That's always my big challenge. — Hugo Weaving

We must repeat the often repeated saying, that it is unworthy a religious man to view an irreligious one either with alarm or aversion, or with any other feeling than regret and hope and brotherly commiseration. — John Keats

As we mature in Christ, it is actually possible to outgrow fear. — Dallas Willard

You can't live in your own secluded world. If you're not on the Tube, on the bus doing normal things, how can you relate to people? — Andrea Corr

I believe people may have a predisposition for artistic creativity. It doesn't mean they're going to make it. — Rita Dove

There was light and there was darkness, and where once, so recently, he had sat at his desk bathed in that light, now he was clothed in the black cover of heartbreak. — Shamim Sarif

Wherever magistrates were appointed from among those who complied with the injunctions of the laws, Socrates considered the government to be an aristocracy. — Xenophon