Arising Church Quotes

The toleration of those that differ from others in matters of religion is so agreeable to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to the genuine reason of mankind, that it seems monstrous for men to be so blind as not to perceive the necessity and advantage of it in so clear a light. I will not here tax the pride and ambition of some, the passion and uncharitable zeal of others. These are faults from which human affairs can perhaps scarce ever be perfectly freed; but yet such as nobody will bear the plain imputation of, without covering them with some specious colour; and so pretend to commendation, whilst they are carried away by their own irregular passions. But, however, that some may not colour their spirit of persecution and unchristian cruelty with a pretence of care of the public weal and observation of the laws; and that others, under pretence of religion, may not seek impunity for their libertinism and licentiousness; in a word, that none may impose either upon himself or others, by the pretences of loyalty and obedience to the prince, or of tenderness and sincerity in the worship of God; I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other. If this be not done, there can be no end put to the controversies that will be always arising between those that have, or at least pretend to have, on the one side, a concernment for the interest of men's s ~ John Locke

The greatest danger to the church today is not humanism, paganism, atheism or agnosticism. The greatest danger is not increasing hostility against our faith from the culture. Our greatest danger is apostasy on the inside, arising from false teachers- theological liberals who deny and distort biblical doctrine and lead others down the same path. ~ Mark Hitchcock

The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person - every person - needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need. The Church is one of those living forces. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

And suddenly you realize: you are in every dot of the universe vanishing and arising. ~ Amit Ray

A new species is arising on the planet, it is arising now and you are it. ~ Eckhart Tolle

Action arising out of insight into what is required is more effective than action arising out of negativity. ~ Eckhart Tolle

Eventually everyone vacates church where God is not obviously present and working. Getting people back to church is pointless unless God comes back first - that's what Vertical Church is all about! Ritual church, tradition church, felt-need church, emotional-hype church, rules church, Bible-boredom church, relevant church, and many other iterations are all horizontal substitutes for God come down, we all get rocked and radically altered, Vertical Church. ~ James MacDonald

The real church is comprised of a long list of "formers" who collectively work together for world reform. ~ Johnnie Dent Jr.

As the church get older and older it becomes harder to keep evangelism on the front burner because of all the competing issues that keeps pushing it back. ~ Gary Rohrmayer

If it is to be effective as a tool of thought, a notation must allow convenient expression not only of notions arising directly from a problem, but also of those arising in subsequent analysis, generalization, and specialization. ~ Kenneth E. Iverson

Missional leaders know that their church will only grow as large as its capacity to provide ongoing care through a network of small groups and ministry teams. ~ Gary Rohrmayer

The Westboro Baptist Church is no more a church than Church's Fried Chicken is a church. ~ Jon Stewart

Scripture was given to the church, and theology is a necessary work of the church, by the church, in the church, and for the church. ~ Kenneth S. Kantzer

Due to our consumer mindset, people are prone to jump from church to church, which weakens the church overall. ~ Francis Chan

Most of us come to the church by a means the church does not allow. ~ Flannery O'Connor

I love the church, the church that God is establishing, that Jesus died for, so I'll never have any negative things to say about His church. ~ LeCrae

Better than one hundred years lived without seeing the arising and passing of things / Is one day lived seeing their arising and passing.2 What does this say about what we value and work for in our lives, and about the liberating effect of seeing directly, in the moment, the truth of change? ~ Joseph Goldstein

In our discussion of the need for balanced ministry fronts in chapter 23, we looked at the five models of church proposed by Avery Dulles: "the church as institution" (which we might call doctrine driven); "the church as mystical communion" (worship driven); "the church as sacrament" (community driven); "the church as herald" (evangelism driven); and "the church as servant" (justice driven). ~ Timothy Keller

Church is what you do. Church is who you are. Church is the human outworking of the person of Jesus Christ. Let's not go to Church, let's be the Church. ~ Bill Hybels

According to Scripture, the invisible church includes everyone who has ever been genuinely born again for every age of church history. This church will not meet in a visible way until Christ returns. The visible church consists of believers who are alive and meeting together right now. ~ Wayne Mack

I would like a more missionary church,Not so much a tranquil church, but a beautiful church that goes forward. ~ Pope Francis

Many modern Christians will take the best programs from every church while committing to no church. They even have a name for it: church shopping. ~ Mark Driscoll

To a true believer, death is but going to church: from the church below to the church above. ~ Augustus Toplady

The only church that illuminates is a burning church. ~ Buenaventura Durruti

Clearly the person who accepts the Church as an infallible guide will believe whatever the Church teaches. ~ Thomas Aquinas

Though you see a Church-man ill, yet continue in the Church still. ~ George Herbert

DUE TO OUR FEELINGS ARISING FROM CONTACT, we think and we rationalize, conceptualize, theorize, philosophize and speculate. Because of the feeling arising from the six senses, we increase our desire; we come to wrong views and wrong beliefs. We recall our past sights, smells, sounds, tastes, touches and ideas and build up more desires, thoughts, concepts, beliefs, ideas, theories and philosophies. ~ Henepola Gunaratana

For me, it's church and state, not church in state, and I really feel there are some churches in central Ohio crossing that line. ~ Eric Williams

Most of the characters I write with don't think an awful lot about their faith. They're not always questioning the church or feeling confined by the church or rebelling against the church. ~ Alice McDermott

God's church is a Bible-centered church, and it grows strong under persecution. ~ Billy Graham

It's all so verbal in the Protestant church. You've heard these words a million times before. Maybe people are leaving the church because they find the church has nothing that they're looking for. ~ Frederick Buechner

To know how to distinguish the agitation arising from covetousness, from the agitation arising from principles, to fight the one and aid the other, in this lies the genius and the power of great revolutionary leaders. ~ Victor Hugo

The church should be setting the pace. The church should be taking its proper place of leadership in the nation ... God help the church to wake up! ~ Billy Graham

My grandmother went to church, but my mother had been inundated with church and decided that when she had children, she would not push church or God on her children. ~ Gloria Gaynor

Leadership in church is one of the biggest challenges that the Church is facing because without strong leadership, the church rarely lives out its redemptive potentials. ~ Bill Hybels

No one can have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother. ~ Cyprian

Just as the dawn is the forerunner of the arising of the sun, so true friendship is the forerunner of the arising of the noble eightfold path. ~ Gautama Buddha

The church which is not a missionary church will be a missing church when Jesus comes. ~ F.B. Meyer

The same church members who yell like Comanche Indians at a ball game on Saturday sit like wooden Indians in church on Sunday. ~ Vance Havner

The intimate sense of self-awareness we experience bubbling up at each moment is rooted in the originating activity of the Universe. We are all of us arising together at the invisible center of the cosmos." We once thought that we were no bigger than our physical bodies, but now we are discovering that we are deeply connected participants in the continuous co-arising of the entire Universe. Awakening to our larger identity as both unique and inseparably connected with a co- arising Universe transforms feelings of existential separation into experiences of subtle communion as bio-cosmic beings. We are far richer, deeper, more complex, and more alive than we ever thought'. ~ Alexis Karpouzos

I sang in the choir for years, even though my family belonged to another church. ~ Paul Lynde

Everyone related to me in my circle was from church: church friends, church school, church activities. All my friends weren't allowed to watch MTV or go to PG-13 movies or listen to the radio, so I didn't really know anything different. That's how I was raised. ~ Katy Perry

Funny how a melody sounds like a memory. ~ Eric Church

Declare Church and State forever separate and distinct, but each free within their proper spheres, and that all church property shall bear its own proportion of taxation. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

We're not opposed to Catholics having pride in their church, but that doesn't mean that every church that doesn't join them isn't a church. ~ Pope Shenouda III

Is the Church of England an Anglican church? The church did not start in Canterbury, the church did not start in Rome. Whether Canterbury is Anglican or not is immaterial. We are Anglicans. They are the Church of England. ~ Peter Akinola

The church is not a brick-and-mortar structure. The church is made of flesh & blood. Followers of #Christ are the church. ~ Eric Samuel Timm

The clock ticks; the taunting rhythm serving as a reminder that forward is the only way we can go. The mechanical heartbeat of the darkness, a cold ellipsis, punctuating years gone by.
Arising unchained.
No glorious hymn, just the steady beat of the illusion of time. We heal or we carry forward the weight of our wounds ... To believe otherwise is the mendacity of desperation.
Arising honestly.
The miles behind are littered with the weight of nostalgia, but too many miles lay ahead us to carry the weight. In the end, even echoes fade away.
Pen in hand ...
Arising to write the next chapter.
(MU Articles 2013, Dedication to Joey) ~ Shannon L. Alder

Over the years, I have studied church history as well as the contemporary church, and I noticed how rare it is for a God-glorifying transition of leadership to take place in a local church. ~ C.J. Mahaney

The Bible judges the church; the church does not judge the Bible. The Bible is the foundation for and the creator of the church; the church is not the foundation for or creator of the Bible. The church and its hierarchy must be evaluated by the believer with the biblical gospel as the touchstone or plumb line for judging all truth claims. ~ Timothy Keller

The local church is the outcrop of the church universal. ~ Peter Forsyth

The Church of England is the only church in the world that interferes neither with your politics nor your religion ~ Anthony Trollope

Every church has a marketing plan! The only difference is that some are better than others! When I think of marketing I think of building a relationship with those within reach of your ministry who know nothing about your church or are disconnected from your people. ~ Gary Rohrmayer

Turn in your guns at your local church ~ Chuck Baldwin

It takes more than a busy church, a friendly church, or even an evangelical church to impact a community for Christ. It must be a church ablaze, led by leaders who are ablaze for God. ~ Wesley L. Duewel

By the time we get to church, I need church cuz I've been yelled at by everyone in the family. ~ Jeff Foxworthy

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. ~ Thomas Paine

I fully understand it's important to maintain the separation of church and state. We don't want the state to become the church, nor do we want the church to become the state. ~ George W. Bush

Much of today's church relies more on a book the early church didn't have, than the Holy Spirit they did. ~ Bill Johnson

The Church is Christ's witness to the world of a loving savior and His redemptive plan for man. ~ John Paul Warren

The Catholic Church is a thousand times better than your Protestant Church upon that question [of damnation]. The Catholic Church believes in purgatory - that is, a place where a fellow can get a chance to make a motion for a new trial. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

If the devil can get the church to withdraw from prayer by believing reasonable excuses, the church is under his dominion. ~ Edward McKendree Bounds

I wish, in America, (that) we were as concerned about separation from church and sin as we are about separation between church and state. Church and sin
it's a monstrous problem. ~ Leonard Ravenhill

I was not in the church, but we claim, like so many people, 'Yeah, I grew up in the church.' Well yeah, I grew up in the church and went to church, but I knew nothing about the Lord. I had no idea what it meant about walking in faith. ~ Lou Brock

I could not possibly have been placed in circumstances more highly favorable for study and exploration than those which I now enjoy. I am free from the distractions constantly arising in civilized life from social claims. Nature offers unceasingly the most novel and fascinating objects for learning. The only drawbacks to this solitude are the want of information on the progress of scientific discovery in Europe and the lack of all the advantages arising from an interchange of ideas. ~ Alexander Von Humboldt

I played at my church every once in a while, but that's not a good gauge, because everybody loves you at your church. ~ Chris Tomlin

Most readers will be shocked by the clear record of history linking Adolf Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church in a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews ~ John Hagee

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. ~ Thom S. Rainer

The Church is the Heart, not the amount of Sunday services you attend because many people goes to church but still partake in Devilish acts. ~ Henry Johnson Jr

I grew up in the Methodist church. My wife grew up in the Baptist church. And wives get everything they want. So we got married in the Baptist church. ~ Rick Scott

We as a church don't have a mission. The mission has a Church. ~ Reggie McNeal

I don't know that the Libertarian Party has an official position on the separation of church and state. ~ Michael Badnarik

There's nobody who doesn't have problems with the church, because there's sin in the church. But there's no other place to be a Christian except the church. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

For the Church of Sweden, the Church of England, the German Lutheran Church and many other branches of European Christianity, the message of the religion has become a form of left-wing politics, diversity action and social welfare projects. ~ Douglas Murray

The church is in trouble-that's what they say anyways. The problem is most of what they call the church is not the church, and the church is not quite as in trouble as everybody thinks. As a matter of fact, the church today is absolutely beautiful-she's glorious, she's humble, she's broken, and she's confessing her sin. The problem is what everybody's calling the church today isn't the church. Basically, by and large, what's called the church today is nothing more than a bunch of unconverted church people with unconverted pastors. ~ Paul Washer

One would think that [persecution] would be an obstacle to church growth when joining the church meant a death sentence. And yet, the age of persecution was the greatest period of church growth in history. ~ Gene Veith

We need to avoid the spiritual sickness of a church that is wrapped up in its own world: when a church becomes like this, it grows sick. ~ Pope Francis

God does not punish, just as the Church no longer condemns, except those who stay faithful to Tradition. (p. 61) ~ Marcel Lefebvre

A church without a missions or a mission without the church are both contradictions. Such things do exist, but only as pseudostructures ~ Carl Braaten

I think we are all trying to figure out what it means to be the Church as opposed to just doing church. ~ Erwin McManus

You're telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment? ~ Christine O'Donnell

Creativity has two possibilities. One is that it arises out of your silence, love, understanding, your clarity of vision, your intimate friendliness with existence - then creativity is healthy. But if it does not arise out of meditation, out of silence and peace and understanding and love, then there is a danger. It may be arising out of your confused mind. It may be arising out of your insanity. ~ Rajneesh

Every local church has a leader but it seems so few local churches are being led. ~ Andy Stanley

For church buildings not to be enough is to build and equip church members to send them out ~ Sunday Adelaja

Dear Church, everyone is broken, stop pretending like you're not. ~ Carlos A. Rodriguez

The emperor is in the Church, not about the Church. ~ Ambrose

Shortly afterward, I sat puzzled, grieving over the state of our church. "I think I've lost hope in the church," I confessed, brokenhearted, to a friend. I will never forget her response. "No, you haven't lost hope in the church. You may have lost hope in Christianity or Christendom or all the institutions, but you have not lost hope in the church. This is the church." At that moment, we decided to stop complaining about the church we saw, and we set our hearts on becoming the church we dreamed of. ~ Shane Claiborne

A church without the broken is a broken church. ~ Ed Stetzer

For reasons I can't remember, my family eventually stopped attending church, and I started questioning the Catholic Church's beliefs. I dabbled a little, but nothing stuck. ~ Ann Hood

In his work The Book of Church Growth, Thom Rainer explained, "Prayer is the power behind the principles. There simply is no more important principle in church growth than prayer. The prayers of the early church unleashed the power of God to add thousands to the church. It happened then. It is happening in some churches today. And it can happen in your church."13 ~ Ed Stetzer

Every believer is commanded to be plugged in to a local church. ~ David Jeremiah

Before everything else, fidelity to the Church: One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. Jesus did not found several churches, but one single Church. ~ Pope John XXIII

The Church knows nothing of a sacredness of war. The Church which prays'Our Father'asks God only for peace. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

There are three bodies no sensible man directly challenges: the Roman Catholic Church, the Brigade of Guards and the National Union of Mineworkers ~ Harold Macmillan

I want you to know he's coming to the church before he comes FOR the church. He's gonna perfect the Church so the church can be the Image, and be him, and be his representation. ~ Paul Cain

The divorce between Church and State ought to be absolute. It ought to be so absolute that no Church property anywhere, in any state or in the nation, should be exempt from equal taxation; for if you exempt the property of any church organization, to that extent you impose a tax upon the whole community. ~ James A. Garfield

I have always kept one end in view, namely ... to conduct a well-regulated church music to the honour of God. ~ Johann Sebastian Bach

Unless the church quickly recovers the authoritative biblical message, we may witness the spectacle of millions of Christians going outside the institutional church to find spiritual food. ~ Billy Graham

Ed Stetzer, a missiologist, pointed out, "When the Reformers (and later evangelicals) deemphasized the apostolic nature of the church, they inadvertently lessened the sending nature of that apostolic church. The church that 'reformed' lost touch with the God who sends, and the mission of the church suffered. ~ Terry D Shiver

For me, when I grew up playing music, I played music in church and people were shouting and having a big time, and church wasn't something where it was subdued. If you played something, you brought it to church with you. ~ Randy Owen