Quotes & Sayings About Your Church Family

Technically, anything that a ministry does for the family could be called family ministry but that's actually part of the problem. There is a difference between doing something FOR the family and doing something WITH the family. Family ministry should not be another program you add to your list of programs. It should develop the process that drives how both the church and the home combine their effort to influence the next generation in their faith and character. If you really believe that nothing is more important than someone's relationship with God, it makes sense to combine the influences of the home and church. — Reggie Joiner

And so, overcome by remorse and the beauty of all that, I should let her go," Alana purred. "Family and church and puppies and flowers - how lovely your world must be, Sergeant. But it's somewhat darker than that for the rest of us." She looked at Samantha. "Of course, it does have its moments. — Jeff Lindsay

Each woman brings her own separate, unique strengths to the family and the Church. Being a daughter of God means that if you seek it, you can find your true identity. — James E. Faust

To all fathers and mothers of the Church, tell your children that you love them and that you are so happy to have them in your family. — Patricia P. Pinegar

To conquer your biology, stop seeing people sexually and start seeing them as family. In our day, we have really a perverted notion where it's like strangers and potential sexual objects. — Mark Driscoll

Church members as well should realize that persistent divisive grumbling and complaining can cost them their church family. Paul put it this way in Romans 16:17, "Watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. " Notice that it says of them, "Such people are not serving Christ, but their own appetites." In other words, these individuals who tear up churches and who teach doctrines contrary to what they learned are selfish, self-centered, self-indulgent individuals with whom believers are to have no fellowship. Unity in Christ doesn't mean that you have Christian fellowship with everyone, but only those who are biblical. — Richard L. Ganz

You are not indispensable to your church, but you are indispensable to your family. — Adam Hamilton

The gospel does not prompt you to mere reflection; the gospel requires a response. In the process of hearing Jesus, you are compelled to take an honest look at your life, your family, and your church and not just ask, 'What is he saying?' but also ask, 'What shall I do?' — David Platt

What are you doing personally to make your church family more warm and loving? There are many people in your community who are looking for love and a place to belong. The truth is, everyone needs and wants to be loved, and when people find a church where members genuinely love and care for each other, you would have to lock the doors to keep them away. — Rick Warren

We have chaos reigning in the Middle East. There is a great deal of instability. In the past, people would have turned to their church, and some still do. Counterintuitively, people are now turning into themselves to find their roots. The way you do that is through your family tree. "Where did I come from?" There is an urge to preserve the names of the people who produced you. — Henry Louis Gates

If a school makes an effort to provide kids the right foods and help them to be more active, this benefits the student and the family's health. If you embark on a program to improve your health with a church or community group, you are more likely to stick with it over time. — Tom Rath

Your people back in Pennsylvania - what are they like?" Caleb finished his work and turned to face Lily, his arms folded. Because the barn was shadowy and he was wearing that blasted campaign hat of his she could barely see his face. "Decent, hardworking, ordinary enough." "Rich?" Lily inquired. "Yes, you could say that." Lily sighed. Marrying the major might eliminate her current dilemma, but once the back-east Hallidays got a good look at her the snobbery would begin all over again. Caleb's family would wonder what had possessed their long-lost son to choose an orphan with a questionable reputation for his wife. He curved a finger under her chin and lifted it. "They'd take to you immediately, sodbuster," he said. "It's me they've got no use for." "And if they didn't?" "They would. Now let's get back to the fort - that is, unless you want to stop at the church and get married first." Lily thought for a moment, then shook her head. Caleb — Linda Lael Miller

Different people define "the good life" in different ways. To me, the good life includes active participation in family, church and community. It means making time for playing with kids, teaching them important religious and moral principles in the home, going to church with them and spending enough time with them that they know you care. It requires being a partner with your spouse, allowing him or her to grow in her own right, to spread her wings and fly. It includes participating in the community -- committees, service, voting, perhaps public office. It means having enough financial base that there is some flexibility in life, without which the previous activities just described are very limited. — Kenneth Ross French

Paradox
/pera,daks/ noun
1. Being told to wake up and come back to reality by your family and friends, while being dragged to church to hear a lesson on Jonah and the whale, followed by a sermon on believing in things you can't see without faith. — Shannon L. Alder

The child says, "Well geesh, the institutions that I'm supposed to respect - the church and the government - they're telling me things that don't appear to be true. Either I'm crazy or they're crazy." That creates the Absurd Child. The Absurd Child is one who says, "Well, I think they're crazy." So you live in this state of alienation from your culture and your society and your family because you see this rampant bullshit around you. — Harold Ramis

But every time I go to church with you, I feel like everyone's trying to trap me in a room and convert me.' Which, in truth, they are. 'I want you, and your family, to love me for who I am,' he shouts, 'To let me be who I am. — Nicole Hardy

Do you treat strangers as good as you do your friends or church family? (Acts 10:34) — Amanda Penland

When awe of God has captured your heart, ministry will fill your schedule. You won't need the church to schedule ministry for you; you will approach work, marriage, parenting, extended family, friendships, and community with a ministry mentality. — Paul David Tripp

Work is not all there is to life. You will not have a meaningful life without work, but you cannot say that your work is the meaning of your life. If you make any work the purpose of your life - even if that work is church ministry - you create an idol that rivals God. Your relationship with God is the most important foundation for your life, and indeed it keeps all the other factors - work, friendships and family, leisure and pleasure - from becoming so important to you that they become addicting and distorted. — Timothy J. Keller

Jesus is challenging that when addressing "who is your neighbor" and he has a lot of hard things to say about family, "unless you hate your own family you are not going to be a disciple." He is challenging the limits of our compassion and our love as if someone's kid suffers it should be as devastating to us as if it were our own kid. That is what the early church said. — Shane Claiborne

If you are too busy in your church activities to take care of your family, then perhaps we had better find something else for you to do. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Dear sisters, many of you are endlessly compassionate and patient with the weaknesses of others. Please remember also to be compassionate and patient with yourself.
In the meantime, be thankful for all the small successes in your home, your family relationships, your education and livelihood, your Church participation and personal improvement. Like the forget-me-nots, these successes may seem tiny to you and they may go unnoticed by others, but God notices them and they are not small to Him. If you consider success to be only the most perfect rose or dazzling orchid, you may miss some of life's sweetest experiences. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Now you, as a young person, may have no faith in your country, or in your church, or in your family. But you can still have faith in an ideal. If you have an ideal in front of you, you will never get lost on the journey of life. It is, after all, the journey that matters. — Edward Bloor

It seems jolly on the page. But imagine poverty, violence, natural disasters, or political fear driving you away from everything you know. Imagine how bad things get to make you leave behind your family, your friends, your lovers; your home, as humble as it might be; your church, say. Let's take it further - you've said good-bye to the graveyard, the dog, the goat, the mountains where you hunted, your grade school, your state, your favorite spot on the river where you fished and took time to think. — Luis Alberto Urrea

It sounds like a cliche, but it ... you do sing about what you know about. And I grew up in a small town, and I grew up in a place where your whole world revolved around friends, family, school, and church, and sports. — Kenny Chesney

Dedicate yourself above all else to becoming the-best-version-of-yourself. It is the best thing you can do for your spouse, your children, your friends, your colleagues, your employees, your employer, your church, your nation, the human family, and yourself. — Matthew Kelly

Apparently "love thy neighbour" changes to "judge thy neighbour" if your family doesn't follow the church playbook. — Miranda Kenneally

What's to rationalize? You mean you shouldn't pray if you haven't got your s
t together? This is another fairly common misconception of faith, which is that people who go to church, or people who pray, or people who talk about their religion must be, somehow more pious or ethically rigorous or have more morally cleansed lifestyle. The high correlation is supposed to be between faith and your search, the depth of your search, your willingness to try, your willingness to admit error, your hope and belief in the ultimate meaning and value of that search.' - Timothy Shriver — J. Randy Taraborrelli

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

Rory, I want to say that death is what you've always wanted. But that can't be the Truth. [This time] we can blame it on me. I'll be the packing mule, carry all the burden. & you, you can be a child again; fold your church hands like dirty laundry [crease them tight]. Nobody has to know about us, not my father
nor yours --
No, not even God — Christopher Soto

When you invite people to share in your miracle, you create future allies during rough weather. — Shannon L. Alder

Often the truth is in front of your face, but your eyes and heart are so full of lies that you can't see it. — Shannon L. Alder

Sam, I want that to be us. I want to stand up in church in front of our family and friends and make you my wife. I want them to listen to me say my vows to you and watch me slide my ring on your finger. I want them to see you wear my mark. I want to marry you, Sam. — P.J. Fiala

If therefore our houses be houses of the Lord, we shall for that reason love home, reckoning our daily devotion the sweetest of our daily delights; and our family-worship the most valuable of our family-comforts ... A church in the house will be a good legacy, nay, it will be a good inheritance, to be left to your children after you. — Matthew Henry

Your impact on the lives of others
your family, the people at your church, your workmates
is cultivated with each decision you make, no matter how small. — Jim George

Jesus is building his Church, not only by constitutions and codes, but by shaping hearts and minds to his way of life. We are a family, not a firm, scattered and yet gathered. Biblical equality is not the endgame; it is one of the means to God's big ending: all things redeemed, all things restored. Jesus feminism is only one thread in God's beautiful woven story of redemption. Begin here: right at the feet of Jesus. Look to Love, and yes, our Jesus - he will guide you in your steps, one after another, in these small ways until you come at last to love the whole world. — Sarah Bessey

If you've been here 15 years and you've got three kids and grandkids and you've been paying taxes and obeying the law, you belong to a local church, I don't think we're going to separate you from your family, uproot you forcefully and kick you out. — Newt Gingrich

Tell me,' I said. 'Tell me when you notice me.'
I notice you going into church,' Joshua said. 'I notice your hair, how blond it is. But how in some light it looks like it has red in it. I notice the way you smell when we're close. And the way you walk when we're headed home from church and your family gets out of the Temple first. I notice how you are with your family and how you hold your little sisters. I've seen you stand out on your doorstep and look across the desert. I've watched you walk toward the Compound fence and then on past that. You've been walking for years. — Carol Lynch Williams

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

I kind of grew up with a mix of two things. One was kind of this individual work ethic that my father and my stepfather and my mother all taught me, which was never depend on anyone else to do things for you, and work really hard on your own. At the same time, I benefited from the help of church and family and government my whole life. — Kyrsten Sinema

You're going to come across some truly gifted people in your lifetime that seem to know all the answers. However, they lost their personal relationship with God, along the way. Love them anyways, and do everything you can to help them restore that relationship. They are fighting a war that you don't know anything about. — Shannon L. Alder

My take on tithing in America is that it's a middle-class way of robbing God. Tithing to the church and spending the rest on your family is not a Christian goal. It's a diversion. The real issue is: How shall we use God's trust fund-namely, all we have-for His glory? In a world with so much misery, what lifestyle should we call our people to live? What example are we setting? — John Piper