Bethel Church Quotes

Working for love is a curse. Working from love is a ministry. ~ Kris Vallotton

When you forget who you are and whose you are, you start to compromise. ~ Kris Vallotton

So many of us have believed that we need to labor and perform for God so that we can gain an identity, so that we might be accepted. But in the Kingdom, we start off accepted. ~ Beni Johnson

If God had a church it would not be split up into factions, and that if he taught one society to worship one way, and administer in one set of ordinances, He would not teach another, principles which were diametrically opposed. ~ Joseph Smith Jr.

Many years from now, what would you like people to line up and thank you for? ~ Andy Stanley

Every great doctrine revealed in the Scripture has a balancing truth and both are necessary to a knowledge of the whole truth." p181 ~ E.H. Broadbent- The Pilgrim Church

I do not think we could determine the truth of what had happened in history by having the Quorum of the Twelve vote on it. ~ Leonard J. Arrington

The ordinary ministry is that which receives all of its direction from the will of God revealed in the Scriptures and from those means which God has appointed in the church for its continual edification. ~ William Ames

Many will argue that there is nothing remotely spiritual in combat. Consider this. Mystical or religious experiences have four common components: constant awareness of one's own inevitable death, total focus on the present moment, the valuing of other people's lives above one's own, and being part of a larger religious community such as the Sangha, ummah, or church. All four of these exist in combat. The big difference is that the mystic sees heaven and the warrior sees hell. Whether combat is the dark side of the same version, or only something equivalent in intensity, I simply don't know. I do know that at the age of fifteen I had a mystical experience that scared the hell out of me and both it and combat put me into a different relationship with ordinary life and eternity.

Most of us, including me, would prefer to think of a sacred space as some light-filled wonderous place where we can feel good and find a way to shore up our psyches against death. We don't want to think that something as ugly and brutal as combat could be involved in any way with the spiritual. However, would any practicing Christian say that Calvary Hill was not a sacred space? ~ Karl Marlantes

Having a good definition of spiritual leadership is critical to development
of leadership cultural throughout your church. You need to know what you are
shooting for if you are going to hit the target. ~ Gary Rohrmayer

This leaves us with the urgent question: How can we be or become a caring community, a community of people not trying to cover the pain or to avoid it by sophisticated bypasses, but rather share it as the source of healing and new life? It is important to realize that you cannot get a Ph.D. in caring, that caring cannot be delegated by specialists, and that therefore nobody can be excused from caring. Still, in a society like ours, we have a strong tendency to refer to specialists. When someone does not feel well, we quickly think, 'Where can we find a doctor?' When someone is confused, we easily advise him to go to a counselor. And when someone is dying, we quickly call a priest. Even when someone wants to pray we wonder if there is a minister around. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

My family and I would never receive royalties on the revenue that my materials brought into the church; materials that were created on our own personal time. ~ Robert H. Schuller

Don't try so hard to be hip. When the Church finds out what is cool, it is not cool anymore. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Rather than experiencing the richness of a dynamic, intimate relationship with the righteous One, you put God in a little box that you can check off your to-do list each week. By settling for rules and religion and feeling pretty good about how much you're doing for the church and those less fortunate, you become blinded to legalism and self-righteousness. ~ Craig Groeschel

Remaining" is an essential part… What the Church Fathers call perseverantia–patient steadfastness in communion with the Lord amid all the vicissitudes of life–is placed center stage here. Initial enthusiasm is easy. Afterward, though, it is time to stand firm, even along the monotonous desert paths that we are called upon to traverse in this life–with the patience it takes to tread evenly, a patience in which the romanticism of the initial awakening subsides, so that only the deep, pure Yes of faith remains. This is the way to produce good wine. ~ Benedict XVI

The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine but for unbelievers a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight. ~ Hilaire Belloc

The future of the church is also about looking back and looking at where we see these wonderful renewals and what we can learn from the early church. I think it is a really exciting time where Phyllis Tickle said every few hundred years the church needs a rummage sale where we can get rid of some of the clutter. ~ Shane Claiborne

The weather-cock on the church spire, though made of iron, would soon be broken by the storm-wind if it did not understand the noble art of turning to every wind. ~ Heinrich Heine

Seeing oneself as a prophetic minority does not mean retreat, and it certainly does not mean victim status. It also does not confer faithfulness. Marginalization can strip away from us the besetting sins of a majoritarian viewpoint, but it can bring others as well. We must remember our smallness but also our connectedness to a global, and indeed cosmic, reality. The kingdom of God is vast and tiny, universal and exclusive. Our story is that of a little flock and of an army, awesome with banners. Our legacy is a Christianity of persecution and proliferation, of catacombs and cathedrals. If we see ourselves as only a minority, we will be tempted to isolation. If we see ourselves only as a kingdom, we will be tempted toward triumphalism. We are, instead, a church. We are a minority with a message and a mission. ~ Russell D. Moore

When I talk to my neighbor, or to someone at church who doesn't accept that the planet is changing, I know that they don't know any better. They've been told this information by somebody they trust and it's not their fault. They've just never heard otherwise. ~ Katharine Hayhoe

When there was a disaster, it used to be that people went to church and all held hands. Now the minute anything happens they run to CNN. ~ Don Hewitt

A church can ignore the culture only until, as the divorce culture did in the past, that culture reshapes the church in a way that obscures the gospel itself. ~ Russell D. Moore

One might even state it as an axiom: when the church leaves out bits of its core teaching, heretics will pick them up, turn them into something new, and use them to spread doubt and unbelief. ~ N. T. Wright

Our seer is bold, beautiful and, yes, sexier than hell. Who wouldn't be attracted to her?" Dark eyes glowing Vulcan dared, "Nobody better answer that. ~ Nini Church

A church that looks and talks and sounds just like the world has no reason to exist. ~ Rod Dreher

Some go to Church, proud humbly to repent, And come back much more guilty than they went: One way they look, another way they steer, Pray to the Gods; but would have Mortals hear; And when their sins they set sincerely down, They'll find that their Religion has been one. ~ Edward Young

According to Christian belief, man exists for the sake of God; according to the liberal church, in practice if not in theory, God exists for the sake of man. ~ John Gresham Machen

When cerebral processes enter into sports, you start screwing up. It's like the Constitution, which says separate church and state. You have to separate mind and body. ~ Bill Lee

It's been a while since I've been to church, but you don't get unborn again. ~ John Schneider

We commit to other believers in the local church simply because it's part of God's calling us into his family. It's what it means to be a Christian. Take the passage from 1 John 4:19-21. It starts with our salvation: "He first loved us." Then it continues into our love for other Christians. "Whoever loves God must also love his brother." Every person loved by God in this salvific sense loves other Christians. There are no exceptions. And that means we should stop viewing commitment to a local church as a process and start viewing it as an event. The event is our salvation, and commitment is something that inevitably follows- not something that merely happens as we mature. ~ Jamie Dunlop

A survey carried out across the U.S. between 2004 and 2006 showed that frequent church- or synagogue-goers are more likely to give money to charity. ~ Jonathan Sacks

God is not attracted to mountaintops or church steeples. God is drawn to suffering, and the dark places it surfaces, which is why sharing pain freely feels very much like love, and may be the same thing. (207) ~ Keith Ablow

The emperor is in the Church, not above the Church. ~ Saint Ambrose