Thom S. Rainer Quotes

Membership in the church is not country club membership. It's not about paying your dues and getting perks.

Even if the church began to grow on its own, the members of the dying church would only accept the growth if the new members were like them and if the church would continue to "do church" the way they wanted it.

He placed us in churches to serve, to care for others, to pray for leaders, to learn, to teach, to give, and, in some cases, to die for the sake of the gospel. Many churches are weak because we have members who have turned the meaning of membership upside down. It's time to get it right. It's time to become a church member as God intended. It's time to give instead of being entitled.

A church without a gospel-centered purpose is no longer a church at all.

As a church member, I am responsible for encouraging and leading my entire family to worship together in the church.

Weak leaders of churches blame people and circumstances. Breakout church leaders accept responsibility and see God's possibilities in even difficult situations.

And when any internal or external force tried to change the past, they responded with anger and resolution: "We will die before we change." And they did.

When the church is engaged in meaningful prayer, it becomes both the cause and the result of greater church health.

Passion is hard to define, but I know it when I see it.

So, unlike the heroes of Hebrews 11 who held onto nothing of this life, these dying churches held onto everything, at least everything that made them comfortable and happy. Such is the reason we speak of them in the past.

To be simple is to be great. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you have been expending lots of energy mingling, counseling, or socializing, you need some down time to recover. Put it on your calendar so you can be intentional about it. And for an hour or so, go to a place by yourself. Read, relax, or do nothing. No one is there to talk to you for those minutes. Enjoy your blessed aloneness for a brief season.

Fearful leaders love to stay in the morass of insignificant details. Because the details are usually unimportant, it is difficult to make a mistake of consequence. Of course, it's impossible to do anything of consequence when your focus is on those things that really don't make a difference.

the health of the church is directly tied to the health of groups in the church. If you are not in a small group, a Sunday school class, or some other type of group, you are not contributing to the health of the church.

We will never find joy in church membership when we are constantly seeking things our way. But paradoxically, we will find the greatest joy when we choose to be last. That's what Jesus meant when He said the last will be first. True joy means giving up our rights and preferences and serving everyone else.

The possibility that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. - Abraham Lincoln

Healthy church membership means you find your joy in being last, instead of seeking your way and being first.

Faith and optimism are contagious.

Where the money of the church goes, so goes its heart.

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.

Make me the father, O Lord, who will show my sons enough of a sense of humor, so that they will always be serious, but never take themselves too seriously. Give them humility, so they will always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.

If outside forces and culture were the reasons behind declining and non-influential churches, we would likely have no churches today. The greatest periods of growth, particularly the first-century growth, took place in adversarial cultures. We are not hindered by external forces; we are hindered by our own lack of commitment and selflessness.