Good Churches Quotes & Sayings

Look," said Whiskey Jack. "This is not a good country for gods. My people figured that out early on. There are creator spirits who found the earth or made it or shit it out, but you think about it: who's going to worship Coyote? He made love to Porcupine Woman and got his dick shot through with more needles than a pincushion. He'd argue with rocks and the rocks would win. "So, yeah, my people figured that maybe there's something at the back of it all, a creator, a great spirit, and so we say thank you to it, because it's always good to say thank you. But we never built churches. We didn't need to. The land was the church. The land was the religion. The land was older and wiser than the people who walked on it. It gave us salmon and corn and buffalo and passenger pigeons. It gave us wild rice and walleye. It gave us melon and squash and turkey. And we were the children of the land, just like the porcupine and the skunk and the blue jay. — Neil Gaiman

A man of good sense but of little faith, whose compassion seemed to lead him to church as often as he went there, said to me; 'that he liked to have concerts, and fairs, and churches, and other public amusements go on. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thousands of people have entered churches without discovering a vital experience with Jesus Christ. The substitutes have been handed them in the guise of religious rituals, good works, community effort, or social reform ... none of which can gain a person a right relationship with God. — Billy Graham

Help" is a prayer that is always answered. It doesn't matter how you pray
with your head bowed in silence, or crying out in grief, or dancing. Churches are good for prayer, but so are garages and cars and mountains and showers and dance floors. Years ago I wrote an essay that began, "Some people think that God is in the details, but I have come to believe that God is in the bathroom. — Anne Lamott

Let people pray to God, it's nothing to me. Some good may even come of it, if goodness is something that matters to you. Trap him in churches if you must, and lament him there. But Roma? Roma is a weapon used against us. A poison flavoured sweet and given to hungry men. — Mark Lawrence

Churches are good for prayer, but so are garages and cars and mountains and showers and dance floors. — Anne Lamott

I? What am I?" roared the President, and he rose slowly to an incredible height, like some enormous wave about to arch above them and break. "You want to know what I am, do you? Bull, you are a man of science. Grub in the roots of those trees and find out the truth about them. Syme, you are a poet. Stare at those morning clouds. But I tell you this, that you will have found out the truth of the last tree and the top-most cloud before the truth about me. You will understand the sea, and I shall be still a riddle; you shall know what the stars are, and not know what I am. Since the beginning of the world all men have hunted me like a wolf - kings and sages, and poets and lawgivers, all the churches, and all the philosophies. But I have never been caught yet, and the skies will fall in the time I turn to bay. I have given them a good run for their money, and I will now. — G.K. Chesterton

Hit don't make no difference what a man perfesses. I been in a heap o' churches. There's the Nazarene Church and the Pentecost and the Holy Rollers and the Baptists and I don't know what-all. I cain't see much difference to nary one of 'em. There's a good to all of 'em and there's a bad. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

But, if we want our churches to thrive and our devotional lives to flourish, we absolutely must let God be God. We cannot settle for warm, fuzzy, "feel good movie of the year" versions of God. We cannot settle for a God who exists only to meet our needs and make us happy. We cannot settle for a God who is boring and irrelevant. We cannot settle for a God of our own imagination. We must know the ferocious, untamable God. We must let God out of the boxes we have created. We must come face to face with God as he really is, with all his sharp edges and blazing glory and heart-rending beauty. We must encounter the God who makes mountains melt like wax and the angels cover their eyes and the rivers leap for joy. If we are going to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we must truly know God. We must know him as he truly is, not as we imagine him to be. We must come to grips with the God who has revealed himself in scripture. — Stephen Altrogge

In the Western Church to which I belong, priests cannot be married as in the Byzantine, Ukrainian, Russian or Greek Catholic Churches. In those churches, the priests can be married, but the bishops have to be celibate. They are very good priests. — Pope Francis

And when you write a poem within the accepted poem-form, making it sound like a poem because a poem is a poem is a poem, you are saying "good morning" in that poem, and well, your morals are straight and you have not said SHIT, but wouldn't it be wonderful if you could ... instead of sweating out the correct image, the precise phrase, the turn of a thought ... simply sit down and write the god damned thing, throwing on the color and sound, shaking us alive with the force, the blackbirds, the wheat fields, the ear in the hand of the whore, sun, sun, sun, SUN!; let's make poetry the way we make love; let's make poetry and leave the laws and the rules and the morals to the churches and the politicians; let's make poetry the way we tilt the head back for the good liquor; let a drunken bum make his flame, and some day, Robert, I'll think of you, pretty and difficult, measuring vowels and adverbs, making rules instead of poetry. — Charles Bukowski

A Church Growth principle is a universal truth which, when properly interpreted and applied, contributes significantly to the growth of churches and denominations. It is a truth of God which leads his church to spread his Good News, plant church after church, and increase his Body. — Donald McGavran

I support mosques, obviously. We need churches, temples, mosques. Whatever people use to speak with their god or to receive spiritual inspiration is good for the country. But the symbolism of it at ground zero, within two blocks or three blocks, I believe is wrong. — Peter T. King

What if evangelical mega churches became known around the world for things like providing water access for entire countries or fighting to end the AIDS pandemic? Imagine what integrity that would give to the good news we preach, especially the gospel that Jesus declares is good news to the poor. — Shane Claiborne

Good men are sending the Bible to all parts of the world. Sermons are preached on behalf of fellows-creatures who are perishing in regions known only to us in name. And here, within reach of comparatively the slightest exertion; here, not many miles from churches and schools, and all the moral influences abounding in Christian society; here, in a country endowed with every advantage that God can bestow, are perishing, body and soul, our own countrymen: perishing too from disease, starvation and intemperance, and all the evils incidents to their unhappy condition. White men, Christian men, are driving them back; rooting out their very names from the face of the earth. Ah! these men can seek the country of the Sioux when money is to be gained: but how few care for the sufferings of the Dahcotahs! how few would give a piece of money, a prayer, or even a thought, towards their present and eternal good. — Mary H. Eastman

If the Lord tarries, there may yet be a grass-roots awakening that will overflow all sectarian barriers. There are a host of good people ... who long for a visitation from heaven in old-time power. The kindling wood is scattered all round in all the churches. May God help us to rake off the ashes, uncover the live coals and may He blow upon us with the breath of His Spirit! — Vance Havner

I know nothing which life has to offer so satisfying as the profound good understanding, which can subsist, after much exchange ofgood offices, between two virtuous men, each of whom is sure of himself, and sure of his friend. It is a happiness which postpones all other gratifications, and makes politics, and commerce, and churches, cheap. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

All four gospel writers were no doubt enthusiastic members of their local churches. They went there every Sunday; sometimes they preached themselves; sometimes they listened to the sermon and nodded when the tradition was repeated accurately. And eventually they were prevailed on to write down their own or their sources' recollections of the facts that had generated the tradition. This is why it is silly for X to say: "Mark wasn't written until the 50s at the earliest. That's a good twenty years after Jesus died. Mark couldn't be expected to remember things clearly after all that time." Mark didn't hibernate between the death of Jesus and the time he wrote his gospel, then take out his pen, scratch his head, and say: "It was a long time ago, and I'm trying to remember this for the first time, but so far as I remember it went something like this."31 — Charles Foster

And now the minister prayed. A good, generous prayer it was, and went into details: it pleaded for the church, and the little children of the church; for the other churches of the village; for the village itself; for the county; for the State; for the State officers; for the United States; for the churches of the United States; for Congress; for the President; for the officers of the Government; for poor sailors, tossed by stormy seas; for the oppressed millions groaning under the heel of European monarchies and Oriental despotisms; for such as have the light and the good tidings, and yet have not eyes to see nor ears to hear withal; for the heathen in the far islands of the sea; and closed with a supplication that the words he was about to speak might find grace and favor, and be as seed sown in fertile ground, yielding in time a grateful harvest of good. Amen. — Mark Twain

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

Churches are tax exempt because they are supposed to provide a public good. To prove that good to the IRS, churches arent supposed to hoard their money. They are supposed to spend it on goods and services for the faithful. Under this pretense, the church has made massive investments in tax free real estate all over the world. And when it comes to labor costs, they are almost free. — Lawrence Wright

Lots of my friends and family belong to churches, and some of them are part of the so-called Christian Right. In this preacher, I wanted to show a good man struggling to reconcile his commitment to the community with the political agenda of his church. He does not see that as a dilemma, but I do. — Lanford Wilson

Good churches are not built by bad men; at least, there must be probity and enthusiasm somewhere in the society. These minsters were neither built nor filled by atheists. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The righteously displeased crowds existed now in every part of the world. The total membership of the Churches of God the Utterly Indifferent was a good, round three billion. The young lions who had first taught the creed could now afford to be lambs, to contemplate such oriental mysteries as water trickling down a bell rope. — Kurt Vonnegut

I grew up in eastern Kentucky, and we would sing in the churches, and there's lots of good mountain church singers out there. Like a lot of folks who turn out to be secular music artists, that's a lot of the training you put in, whether you know it or not. — Chris Stapleton

The human person, whose definition serves as the touchstone according to which good must be distinguished from evil, is considered as sacred, in what one might call the ritual sense of the word. It has something of that transcendental majesty which the churches of all times have given to their Gods. — Emile Durkheim

Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great. Though — Eric Metaxas

Religion can be a good thing. Churches did black folks good after Reconstruction. It was the only place people like Nat Turner and Douglass could hold meetings to unite our people. But the white man wanted to teach black folks about the by and by in the sky. He wanted to take their minds off the things here, so maybe they wouldn't notice who was kicking them in the head. I admit, since joining my brother, I've changed some of my views. But you have to be smart about religion. You have to look closely at who's claiming it and how they're using it. — Vaunda Micheaux Nelson

There is much room for humility when it comes to evangelism. We need to acknowledge that God is sovereign and can do as he wills to bring people to himself. There is no formula that dictates how God must work in evangelism. And though we may disagree with the evangelistic practices of individuals, ministries, or churches, we must also recognize that when people develop good-hearted commitments to evangelism, God can produce true fruit. I, for one, will take people practicing evangelism as best they can over those who forgo evangelism until they have the perfect practice. — J. Mack Stiles

If all those magnificent cathedrals with their valuable lands in Boston, Philadelphia and New York were taxed as they should be, the taxes of women who hold property would be proportionately lightened ... I cannot see any good reason why wealthy churches and a certain amount of property of the clergy should be exempt from taxation, while every poor widow in the land, struggling to feed, clothe, and educate a family of children, must be taxed on the narrow lot and humble home. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

It is this that ruins churches, that you do not seek to hear sermons that touch the heart, but sermons that will delight your ears with their intonation and the structure of their phrases, just as if you were listening to singers and lute-players. And we preachers humor your fancies, instead of trying to crush them. We act like a father who gives a sick child a cake or an ice, or something else that is merely nice to eat
just because he asks for it; and takes no pains to give him what is good for him; and then when the doctors blame him says, 'I could not bear to hear my child cry.' ... That is what we do when we elaborate beautiful sentences, fine combinations and harmonies, to please and not to profit, to be admired and not to instruct, to delight and not to touch you, to go away with your applause in our ears, and not to better your conduct. — John Chrysostom

E have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen, all for the glory of God and the good of souls. The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave trade go hand in hand. — Frederick Douglass

And now Nineteen persons having been hang'd, and one prest to death, and Eight more condemned, in all Twenty and Eight, of which above a third part were Members of some of the Churches of N. England, and more than half of them of a good Conversation in general, and not one clear'd; about Fifty having confest themselves to be Witches, of which not one Executed; above an Hundred and Fifty in Prison, and Two Hundred more accused; the Special Commision of Oyer and Terminer comes to a period.
- Robert Calef 1692 — Robert Calef

How do you find a good Psychic? Go to Spiritualist churches, new age — Susan Lukas

With this last adherent, Florence hurried away in the advancing morning, and the strengthening sunshine, to the City. The roar soon grew more loud, the passengers more numerous, the shops more busy, until she was carried onward in a stream of life setting that way, and flowing, indifferently, past marts and mansions, prisons, churches, market-places, wealth, poverty, good, and evil, like the broad river, side by side with it, awakened from its dreams of rushes, willows, and green moss, and rolling on, turbid and troubled, among the works and cares of men, to the deep sea. — Charles Dickens

Oftentimes, churches are started by an entrepreneurial church plant visionary whom everybody follows, but he's not following anybody. Even though he's "accountable to a board," he's really not. Authority's a good thing, and if it's not forced upon you as a leader, then I suggest, strongly, that you go buy some. — Henry Cloud

God will delight to show them mercy, will reckon their conversion a return for all the expense he has been at upon them. There is always joy in heaven. God rejoiceth in all his works, but particularly in the works of his grace. He rejoiceth to do good to penitent sinners, with his whole heart and his whole soul. He rejoiceth not only in the conversion of churches and nations, but even over one sinner that repenteth, though but one. — Matthew Henry

I got divorced, which was not a good thing for a revivalist minister. It did not go down well. I'd already been banned from a couple churches for my jokes. So one day I woke up and decided it was time to start living for myself. — Sam Kinison

I could wish to spy the nakedness of their hearts, and through the different disguises of customs, climates, and religion, find out what is good in them, to fashion my own by. It is for this reason that I have not seen the Palais Royal - nor the facade of the Louvre - nor have attempted to swell the catalogues we have of pictures, statues, and churches - I conceive every fair being as a temple, and would rather enter in, and see the original drawings and loose sketches hung up in it, than the Transfiguration of Raphael itself. — Laurence Sterne

Championships are mythical. The real champions are those who live through what they are taught in their homes and churches. The attitude that 'We've got to win' in sports must be changed. Teach your youngsters, who are the future hope of America, the importance of love, respect, dedication, determination, self-sacrifice, self-discipline and good attitude. That's the road up the ladder to the championships. — Jesse Owens

How was the sermon?" "Was it a good service?" Same blank stare from the ancestors. In those days, churches didn't have to be rockin' it, nobody expected the preacher to hit it out of the park, and the service was, well, a service. — Michael S. Horton

There used to be a tradition of the loveable rogue who would steal from the honour boxes in churches and buy a round of drinks with the money he snagged. And everyone would find him tremendously good company. But not any more. — Douglas Coupland

I remember Bob saying, 'Some people who believe in God are good, and some people who believe in God are not good. So where does that leave you?' He had looked around and decided that religion is responsible for a lot of trouble in the world.' Noyce, always pushing against the limits of accepted knowledge, told Bowers that what bothered him most about organized religions was that 'people don't think in churches. — Leslie Berlin

Churches won't work with you, though, just out of the goodness of their hearts. They'll talk a good game-a sermon on Sunday, maybe, or a special offering for the homeless. But if push comes to show, they won't really move unless you can show them how it'll help them pay their heating bill. — Barack Obama

Folks who thrive in God's grace give grace easily, but the self-critical person becomes others-critical. We "love" people the way we "love" ourselves, and if we are not good enough, then no one is. We keep ourselves brutally on the hook, plus our husbands, our kids, our friends, our churches, our leaders, anyone "other." When we impose unrealistic expectations on ourselves, it's natural to force them on everyone else. If we're going to fail, at least we can expect others to fail; and misery loves company, right? — Jen Hatmaker

THE MYTH OF THE GOOD OL BOY AND THE NICE GAL
The good of boy myth and the nice gal are a kind of social conformity myth. They create a real paradox when put together with the "rugged individual" part of the Success Myth. How can I be a rugged individual, be my own man and conform at the same time? Conforming means "Don't make a wave", "Don't rock the boat". Be a nice gal or a good ol' boy. This means that we have to pretend a lot.
"We are taught to be nice and polite. We are taught that these behaviors (most often lies) are better than telling the truth. Our churches, schools, and politics are rampant with teaching dishonesty (saying things we don't mean and pretending to feel ways we don't feel). We smile when we feel sad; laugh nervously when dealing with grief; laugh at jokes we don't think are funny; tell people things to be polite that we surely don't mean."
- Bradshaw On: The Family — John Bradshaw

The gospel is good news for losers, that in fact we are all losers if we measure ourselves by God's interpretation of reality rather than our own. The demand for glory, power, comfort, autonomy, health, and wealth creates a vicious cycle of craving and disillusionment. It even creates its own industry of therapists and exercise, style, and self-esteem gurus - and churches - to massage the egos wounded by this hedonism. When crisis hits, the soul is too effete to respond appropriately. We become prisoners of our own felt needs, which were inculcated in us in the first place by the very marketplace that promises a "fix." We become victims of our own shallow hopes. We are too easily disappointed because we are too easily persuaded that the marketplace always has something that can make us happy. — Michael S. Horton

There are many who sit in some churches week after week, year after year, without hearing the whole Gospel and knowing what it is to be born again. They hear a gospel which is incomplete, and consequently not good news at all. — Billy Graham

Romans 7:18 where he confesses, "For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out." In verse 24 he goes so far as to call himself a "wretched man." If Paul made that confession in most churches today, the evangelegalists would run him out of the ministry. Paul is so disclosing of his own failings because he is a broken man trying to help other men find what he found in Jesus. Seeing Paul as arrogant because he tells his story is what the arrogant do, but men who have been laid low by Jesus Christ have an awesome story to relay and they don't care if it gets a bit messy. — James MacDonald

Sergeant Pietro Oliva was a good Catholic. He liked to go into a church and cross himself, genuflect to the alter, and then settle down to a little prayer and contemplation, savouring the coolness, the heavy odours, the darkness, and the sensation of being soaked in the atmosphere of centuries' worth of devotion that hung in the tenebrous and golden air of churches. — Louis De Bernieres

I'm not a Wiccan. I'm not big on churches of any kind, despite the fact that I've spoken, face-to-face, with an archangel of the Almighty.
But there were some things I believed in. Some things I had faith in. And faith isn't about perfect attendance to services, or how much money you put on the little plate. It isn't about going skyclad to the Holy Rites, or meditating each day upon the divine.
Faith is about what you do. It's about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It's about making sacrifices for the good of others
even when there's not going to be anyone telling you what a hero you are.
Faith is a power of its own, and one even more elusive and difficult to define than magic. — Jim Butcher

Centralized sounds good ... but the reality is that the National Guard and Army don't have the kind of ties with local organizations that ultimately deliver lots of service, your nonprofits, churches, humanitarian organizations. Those types of linkages get built up over time, in local communities. — Peter May

That's the purpose of law: to defend those who otherwise could not defend themselves. We will be together in this struggle for the good of society itself, believing with Alexis de Tocqueville that churches and religious bodies play a crucial role, a mediating role, in fostering a nation's civic life. — Francis George

Unlike in our society, where we hide it, death surrounded medieval people. They had few hospitals, and so churches, poorhouses, and homes handled the dying and dead. Death was not a distant prospect at the end of a long, healthy life. It was integrated into ordinary experience. Medieval life was transitory, a journey through this world that often ended too soon and too abruptly. Death was often violent and unexpected. Extended death, through illness and in one's own bed, was actually a blessing. Death was part of everyday life; medieval people considered their deaths regularly. Indeed, as one medieval historian puts it, "One of the chief obsessions of medieval Christians was the need to make a 'good death.'"38 — Diana Butler Bass

If I was president of the good old U.S.A., I'd turn the churches into strip clubs and watch the whole world pray. — Kid Rock

In this framework, although church discipline is being thought through afresh by many Christian groups,44 one of the areas where more thought is still needed is the manner in which churches that draw lines in the moral arenas - however graciously, humbly, gently, sometimes by degrees, but also firmly - are not only taking steps to align themselves with Scripture (and with the main strands of Christian heritage, for that matter), but are taking on the culture. Such steps become not only a matter of nurturing and protecting the faithful, but of showing a pluralistic world what Christian living looks like. This will alienate some; under God's good hand, it will draw others, not least because the freedoms promised by pluralism are tearing society apart. In any case, we have little choice: elementary faithfulness demands it. — D. A. Carson

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottage princes' palaces. — William Shakespeare

I enjoy art, architecture, museums, churches and temples; anything that gives me insight into the history and soul of the place I'm in. I can also be a beach bum - I like to laze in the shade of a palm tree with a good book or float in a warm sea at sundown. — Cherie Lunghi

So, yeah, my people figured that maybe there's something at the back of it all, a creator, a great spirit, and so we say thank you to it, because it's always good to say thank you. But we never built churches. We didn't need to. The land was the church. The land was the religion. The land was older and wiser than the people who walked on it. — Neil Gaiman

You might come here Sunday on a whim.
Say your life broke down. The last good kiss
you had was years ago. You walk these streets
laid out by the insane, past hotels
that didn't last, bars that did, the tortured try
of local drivers to accelerate their lives.
Only churches are kept up. The jail
turned 70 this year. The only prisoner
is always in, not knowing what he's done. — Richard Hugo

Being a monk was the strangest and most perverted way of life imaginable. Monks spent half their lives putting themselves through pain and discomfort that they could easily avoid, and the other half muttering meaningless mumbo jumbo in empty churches at all hours of the day and night. They deliberately shunned anything good - girls, sports, feasting and family life. — Ken Follett

What a lucky girl you are to have this opportunity to live in one of the world's great cities at this most fascinating point in its long, rich history, they had said. Little Becky had known enough not to ask if there was going to be a Banana Republic or a Gap there, or a Tower Records or a Starbucks or a Tweeters or a Blockbuster or a Super CVS or a Saks. Her mother only mentioned museums and concert halls and churches and architecture, so Little Becky was quite sure there was no room left in Prague for anything good to be built. — Nancy Clark

That churchgoers do the lion's share of the charitable work in our communities is simply untrue. They get credit for it because they do a better job of tying the good works they do to their creed. But according to a 1998 study, 82% of volunteerism by churchgoers falls under the rubric of "church maintenance" activities
volunteerism entirely within, and for the benefit of, the church building and immediate church community. As a result of this siphoning of volunteer energy into the care and feeding of churches themselves, most of the volunteering that happens out in the larger community
from AIDS hospices to food shelves to international aid workers to those feeding the hungry and housing the homeless and caring for the elderly
comes from the category of "unchurched" volunteers. — Dale McGowan

Being a good steward of those material things that God has given our churches is good. Becoming obsessed with any one item to the neglect of His mission is idolatry. — Thom S. Rainer

A lot of people think that Jesus is coming back. That's fine, it's your right. But you know, I live in New York, and I think he's running a little late. I'm asking myself, 'Alright, what happens if Jesus comes back tomorrow? What - does he make rounds to churches?' 'OK, everyone who's been good, buses leave in 10 minutes. I'll meet you in front of the post office. I gotta go. Oh, don't tell the Jews I'm back.' — Marc Maron

The gospel of grace nullifies our adulation of televangelists, charismatic superstars, and local church heroes. It obliterates the two-class citizenship theory operative in many American churches. For grace proclaims the awesome truth that all is gift. All that is good is ours, not by right, but by the sheer bounty of a gracious God. — Brennan Manning

How does a person please God? Many religions teach that one must appease God/gods with offerings or superstitious rituals. Yet God's story abolishes our religious to-do lists. Faith in Jesus is God's way for us, and delight in Jesus is what God asks of us. When religious people become followers of Jesus, they are freed from sin and legalistic rituals. The Christians in Galatia were coming under the influence of Jewish Christians who believed that a number of the ceremonial practices of Judaism remained obligatory for followers of Jesus. Paul wrote to the churches in this part of Asia Minor to warn them that they were in reality deserting God and turning to a false gospel. He forcefully proclaimed that people cannot be saved by performing good works in general or by adhering to the Law of Moses in particular. We must come to God trusting in Jesus alone. Only then will we experience freedom. — Anonymous

Much in the contemporary church reflects the idolatry of consumerism. Many people join the church simply because of what it has to offer them. A "gospel of prosperity" replaces the radical and costly good news of God's new creation in Jesus Christ. Churches become competitors vying for a greater share of the religious market. Evangelism is reduced to a marketing strategy — Kenneth L. Carder

This ignorance and this crushing of liberty are diligently promoted by the teaching of very many blind pastors, who stir up and urge the people to a zeal for these things, praising them and puffing them up with their indulgences, but never teaching faith. Now I would advise you, if you have any wish to pray, to fast, or to make foundations in churches, as they call it, to take care not to do so with the object of gaining any advantage, either temporal or eternal. You will thus wrong your faith, which alone bestows all things on you, and the increase of which, either by working or by suffering, is alone to be cared for. What you give, give freely and without price, that others may prosper and have increase from you and your goodness. Thus you will be a truly good man and a Christian. For what to you are your goods and your works, which are done over and above for the subjection of the body, since you have abundance for yourself through your faith, in which God has given you all things? — Martin Luther

We've become very good in our churches today at faking our concern when really we couldn't care less about the people around us. — Anna M. Aquino

The bells are a very good investment. They never break if they are maintained. I can teach the kids the basics. They may play bells for only one year, but many of them go on to play at local churches. — Dan Gable

God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated churches where the gospel is cherished - these are the birthplace of the kind of racial harmony that gives long-term glory to God and long-term gospel good to the world. — Bryan Loritts

New Rule: Churches have to stop ringing the damn bells. It was a good idea in the Middle Ages, but people have clocks now. It's not like you're doing us all a favor by keeping the hunchbacks off the street. Make up your mind, are you a house of worship or an ice cream truck? — Bill Maher

Imagine if our churches were known for being communities of Jesus-centered happiness, overflowing with the sheer gladness of what it means to live out the good news of great joy. Imagine if our children brought their friends to church and their comment was, "Those people seem so nice . . . and happy. — Randy Alcorn

Americans practice different faiths in churches, synagogues, mosques and temples. And many good people practice no faith at all. — George W. Bush

The kind of churches we played in, it wasn't about how good you could play your instrument, it was about how much you enjoyed playing your instrument. — Nathan Followill

Every good gospel singer you can hear is a scat singer; they're just using different syllables. There are a lot of jazz singers out there, and more coming out of the churches. — Al Jarreau

Russ decided the best defense was a good offense. "I'm Russell Van Alstyne, Millers Kill chrief of police." He held out his hand. She shook firm, like a guy.
"Clare Fergusson," she said. "I'm the new priest at Saint Alban's. That's the Episcopal Church. At the corner of Elm and Church." there was a faint testiness in her voice. Russ relaxed a fraction. A woman priest. If that didn't beat all.
"I know which it is. There are only four churches in town." He saw the fog creeping along the edges of his glasses again and snatched them off, fishing for a tissue in his pocket. "Can you tell me what happened, um ... " What was he supposed to call her? "Mother?"
"I go by Reverend, Chief. Ms. is fine, too."
"Oh. Sorry. I never met a woman priest before."
"We're just like the men priests, except we're willing to pull over and ask directions. — Julia Spencer-Fleming

But I do like churches. The way it feels inside. It feels good when you just sit there, like you're in a forest and everything's really quiet, expect there's still this sound you can't hear. — Tim O'Brien

The community of Partageuse had drifted together like so much dust in a breeze, settling in this spot where two oceans met, because there was fresh water and a natural harbor and good soil. Its port was no rival to Albany, but convenient for locals shipping timber or sandalwood or beef. Little businesses had sprung up and clung on like lichen on a rock face, and the town had accumulated a school, a variety of churches with different hymns and architectures, a good few brick and stone houses and a lot more built of weatherboard and tin. It gradually produced various shops, a town hall, even a Dalgety's stock and station agency. And pubs. Many pubs. — M.L. Stedman

It's time for us to stop playing religious games with God. It's time to get serious. It's no longer good enough just to "believe" in Jesus; we need to become His disciples. Churches should not be places where we come and get the water inside of us drained out. Rather, churches should be staging posts from where living water flows out into the communities and nations of the world. — Brother Yun

Then as to churches, they are good, I suppose, else wouldn't good men uphold' em. But they are not altogether necessary. They call 'em the temples of the Lord; but, Judith, the whole 'arth is a temple of the Lord to such as have the right mind. Neither forts nor churches make people happier of themselves. Moreover, all is contradiction in the settlements, while all is concord in the woods. Forts and churches almost always go together, and yet they're downright contradictions; churches being for peace, and forts for war. No, no
give me the strong places of the wilderness, which is the trees, and the churches, too, which are arbors raised by the hand of nature. — James Fenimore Cooper

I think our failure in the production of good town churches of distinctive character must have struck you often, as it has me, when contrasted with our comparative success in country churches. — George Edmund Street

The Spirit of God first imparts love; He next inspires hope, and then gives liberty; and that is about the last thing we have in a good many of our churches at the present time. — Dwight L. Moody

First of all, it's friendship with God that makes possible friendship with one another in a manner that is not that we just like one another, but that were are joined by common judgments, by God, for the good of God's church. Such friendship occurs not by trying to be each other's friend, but by discovering you were engaged in common good work that is so determinative, you cannot live without one another. Now, if the church is that, it will talk about friendship in a way that avoids the superficiality of the language of relationship. Because relationships are meant to be spontaneous and short. Friendship, if it is the friendship of God, is to be characterized by fidelity in which you are even willing to tell the friend the truth. Which may mean you will risk the friendship. You need to be in that kind of community to survive the loneliness that threatens all of our souls. — Stanley Hauerwas

Strangers when you meet, strangers when you part -a gymnasium of bodies namelessly masturbating each other. People with no morals often considered themselves more free, but mostly they lacked the ability to feel or to love. So they became swingers. The dead fucking the dead. There was no gamble or humor in their game -it was corpse fucking corpse. Morals were restrictive, but they were grounded on human experience down through the centuries. Some morals tended to keep people slaves in factories, in churches and true to the State. Other morals simply made good sense. It was like a garden filled with poisoned fruit and good fruit. You had to know which to pick and eat, which to leave alone. — Charles Bukowski

It cannot be denied that as institutions, churches do good work. They operate schools and hospitals. Their charity outreaches, which take care of the homeless, sick, and hungry, have real impacts on communities. And while there are certainly hellfire-and-brimstone preachers around, there is counterweight in Presbyterian and Methodist ministers, who are grounded in a modicum of rationality, using Biblical stories as fables to teach psychological and ethical principles. — Gudjon Bergmann

In many churches, the good news has subtly changed into good advice: Here's how to live, they say. Here's how to pray. Here are techniques for helping you become a better Christian, a better person, a better wife or husband. And in particular, here's how to make sure you're on the right track for what happens after death. Take this advice: say this prayer and you'll be saved. You won't go to hell; you'll go to heaven. Here's how to do it. This is advice, not news. — N. T. Wright