Traditional Churches Quotes & Sayings

These days - with the decline of the traditional churches - I'm concerned about where we obtain some form of moral direction. — John Scott

Our truth-allergic, experience-addicted populace wants transformation but doesn't want the loss of freedom and control associated with submitting to authority within a committed community. Many "converts" seem to make decisions for Christ but soon lose their enthusiasm because they are offered quick programs for follow-up and small group fellowship rather than a lifelong, embodied experience of community. Many churches do not even have a process for becoming a member. As a result, converts' lives are often not visibly different from those in the culture around them. The older, more communal processes of traditional churches are better at bringing about a more thorough transformation of life. — Timothy Keller

We must cherish one another, watch over one another, comfort one another, and gain instruction that we may all sit down in heaven together. — Lucy Mack Smith

What is the recipe for successful achievement? To my mind there are just four essential ingredients: Choose a career you love, give it the best there is in you, seize your opportunities, and be a member of the team. — Benjamin Franklin Fairless

I'm in a mainline church, I'm very aware, especially as I move through community churches and new-start churches that are making real efforts not to associate themselves with traditional denominations - very often they have no history. They have no institutional memory. — Barbara Brown Taylor

The view that the truth is one and undivided, and the same for all men everywhere at all times, whether one finds it in the pronouncements of sacred books, traditional wisdom, the authority of churches, democratic majorities, observation and experiment conducted by qualified experts, or the convictions of simple folks uncorrupted by civilisation
this view, in one form or another, is central to western thought, which stems from Plato and his disciples. — Isaiah Berlin

Easter celebrations are evidence of the increased benign influence of the Russian Orthodox Church and other traditional churches in our country on society. — Vladimir Putin

The task of these emerging churches, they contend, is one of "dismantling first and then...rebuilding." They realize that this makes the traditional church uneasy. But, the add, the rebuilding stage cannot be rushed. The work of undoing is essential. "What to some may appear to be pointless complaining is part of a larger process of dismantling ideas of church that simply are not viable in postmodern culture. The emerging church even calls the church to deconstruct itself before it reconstructs itself for ministry in a postmodern climate. — Jim Belcher

If I had my life to live over, I'd have spent more hours in worship. — Charles R. Swindoll

While attendance at traditional churches has been declining for decades ... the evangelical movement is growing, and it is changing the way America worships. — Tom Brokaw

The very last thing I want to do is to unsettle in the mind of any Christian, whatever his denomination, the concepts
for him traditional
by which he finds it profitable to represent to himself what is happening when he receives the bread and wine. I could wish that no definitions had ever been felt to be necessary; and, still more, that none had been allowed to make divisions between churches. — C.S. Lewis

All men make mistakes. — Sophocles

In contrast, traditional Catholic churches serve vast numbers of people who have little or nothing in common, and they are often impersonal supermarkets for the sacraments. — Penny Lernoux

One task the churches can undertake as the nation moves toward democracy is to increase the democracy in church structures themselves, including the ordination of women, the development of more representative and participative styles of church governance, and the repudiation of patriarchy. In many countries, churches cling to traditional authoritarianism, and are a hindrance rather than a help to democratization. It would be a major gift to the world if the churches would at long last condemn domination in all its forms, so that they may more adequately preach and embody Jesus' vision of God's domination-free order. — Walter Wink

A terrible crisis unquestionably has arisen in the Church. In the ministry of evangelical churches are to be found hosts of those who reject the gospel of Christ. By the equivocal use of traditional phrases, by the representation of differences of opinion as though they were only differences about the interpretation of the Bible, entrance into the Church was secured for those who are hostile to the very foundations of the faith. — J. Gresham Machen

And as we leave Donne and Walton on the shores of Metahemeralism, we wave a fond farewell to those famous chums of yore. — Donna Tartt

Having pursued this matter of Christian-traditional relationships as far as I have, it might be concluded that the rest of the book is permeated with references to it. That is not the case. All I have wanted to do is to fix in literary cement what amounts to one of the most incredible milestones in Christian church history - a stunning reversal of opinion where Native American religion is concerned. I harbor no illusions that such developments as these will escalate into anything like acceptance by all, or even a majority of, the Christian churches. But it is a strong beginning, and I, together with the Native Americans, am exceedingly grateful for it! Now though, everything that needs to be said about this has been said, and from here on the book is entirely Fools Crow. Among — Thomas E. Mails

Our society offers little in the way of reeducation for those who have been torn away from their traditional culture and suddenly exposed to all the blandishments of mass culture-even the churches which follow the hillbillies to the city often make use of the same "hard sell" that the advertisers and politicians do. — David Riesman

Boys laugh at what they put girls through - but they won't be laughing when - they're wiping tears off their daughters face for the same reason. — Will Smith

A church must be more deeply and practically committed to deeds of compassion and social justice than traditional liberal churches and more deeply and practically committed to evangelism and conversion than traditional fundamentalist churches. This kind of church is profoundly counter-intuitive to American observers. It breaks their ability to categorize (and dismiss) it as liberal or conservative. Only this kind of church has any chance in the non-Christian west. — Timothy Keller

No way!" I yelled, taking it from him.
"I can't believe I made a pink knife."
"It's so cute! I love it. Finally, a companion worthy of Tasey. — Kiersten White

At the end of the 1960s, I was part of the downtown theatrical movement in New York that was making work in alleyways, garages, gyms, churches, non-traditional spaces. The idea was to get away from the illusion of the conventional theatre. But then I thought, what's wrong with illusion? — Robert Wilson