Luminate Church Quotes

Knees just about buckled out from under him.

Aoife here in his church.

What was God doing to him?

The first girl he'd kissed.

The girl he'd climbed trees with and jumped over streams for because she wanted him to capture her a frog.

The same girl he hid from her brothers and protected her from her drunk father.

The same little girl who would sneak into his house and to sleep in his bed when she was scared of thunderstorms.

The girl who took all his firsts and gave him hers.

The girl he'd worshipped and fucked and lost all in the same year.

And the same woman who had walked away from him and married someone else. ~ V. Theia

Repentance prepares the way and makes the road of our hearts straight. Repentance builds up every low place and takes down every high place in our lives and church families. Repentance prepares us for His presence. ~ Tommy Tenney

It is evident that a man with a scientific outlook on life cannot let himself be intimidated by texts of Scripture or by the teaching of the Church. He will not be content to say "such-and-such an act is sinful, and that ends the matter." He will inquire whether it does any harm or whether, on the contrary, the belief that it is sinful does harm. And he will find that, especially in what concerns sex, our current morality contains a very great deal of which the origin is purely superstitious. He will find also that this superstition, like that of the Aztecs, involves needless cruelty, and would be swept away if people were actuated by kindly feelings towards their neighbors. But the defenders of traditional morality are seldom people with warm hearts ... One is tempted to think that they value morals as affording a legitimate outlet for their desire to inflict pain; the sinner is fair game, and therefore away with tolerance! ~ Bertrand Russell

The only use for military service is that it reveals the number of morons in the population," he would remark. "And that can be discovered in the first two weeks; there's no need for two years. Army, Marriage, the Church and Banking: the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Yes, go on, laugh. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Not everybody who marries in the church and has a family the old-fashioned way is unhappy." "No, but some are. And even if it's just hit-and-miss . . . even if anybody can fall through the cracks, it's still not what I thought I was buying into at all. It still all feels like it makes no sense. ~ Catherine Ryan Hyde

Perhaps we were, all of us -pimps, whores, racketeers, church members, and children -bound together by the nature of our oppression, the specific and peculiar complex of risks we had to run; if so, within these limits we sometimes achieved with each other a freedom that was close to love. I remember, anyway, church suppers and outing, and later, after I left the church, rent and waistline parties where rage and sorrow sat in the darkness and did not stir, and we ate and drank and talked and laughed and danced and forgot all about "the man." We had the liquor, we had the chicken, the music, and each other, and had no need to pretend to be what we were not, This is the freedom that one hears in some gospel songs, for example, and in jazz. ~ James Baldwin

Every day Catholics prove that you can be a good Catholic and a good Democrat and have a different position from the Church on abortion. ~ James Carville

The power of the Bible is most evident in its ability to change lives. It can transform a wealthy Italian playboy into a saint (Saint Francis of Assisi). By its amazing grace, it can transform a debauching, murderous slave trader into a humble abolitionist (John Newton). It can transfigure prostitutes into women of virtue, cowards into rocks of the church, and the proud into the meek. ~ Anonymous

We live in a church culture that has a dangerous tendency to disconnect the grace of God from the glory of God. Our hearts resonate with the idea of enjoying God's grace. We bask in sermons, conferences, and books that exalt a grace centering on us. And while the wonder of grace is worthy of our attention, if that grace is disconnected from its purpose, the sad result is a self-centered Christianity that bypasses the heart of God. ~ David Platt

The funeral was held at St. Mary's Catherdral of San Francisco, which has the distinction of being the only church in the world designed after a washing-machine agitator. ~ Christopher Moore

(Pastor Chuck) Smith told his elders in no uncertain terms that if the church had to turn away young people because of bare feet and clothes that they would be better off ripping up the carpet and replacing the pews with steel folding chairs. ~ Larry Eskridge

If the pursuit of God's glory is not ordered above the pursuit of man's good in the affections of the heart and the priorities of the Church, man will not be well served, and God will not be duly honored. I am not pleading for a diminishing of missions but for a magnifying of God. When the flame of worship burns with the heat of God's true worth, the light of missions will shine to the darkest peoples on earth. And I long for that day to come! ~ John Piper

To serve does not mean just to attend church services ~ Sunday Adelaja

Avoid participating in any religious community where the clear truth-claims of Scripture are ignored while contemplative and mystical practices are favored simply for their spiritual experience. Be careful of any church or ministry wherein acts of mercy and environmental stewardship are devoid of a theology of the cross and wind up being little more than the worship of created people and things. And be careful not to worship a good thing as a god thing for that is a bad thing. ~ Mark Driscoll

It didn't seem to matter that Reagan made his heartfelt endorsements of traditional family values despite being divorced and so alienated from his own children that one of them would write a book about what a rotten father he had been; by the same token, the president's failure to have made regular or even occasional visits to church hardly dimmed his appeal for the resurgent religious right ~ Douglas Brinkley

Jesus didn't just give hugs; He also gave a hammer. Paul didn't just pass on holy kisses; he also tirelessly dealt out swift and holy kicks to the rear end of the ancient church. The Bible has the manly stuff intact, and that is why it is such a great mystery how it got lost in the modern church. ~ Eric Ludy

US is a very religious country. Separation of church and state is part of our credo, but that it is hard to understand since our money says "In God we trust" and every President says "God bless America". ~ Madeleine Albright

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

The problem in the church today is not the profession of faith, but it's possession. ~ R.C. Sproul

Not one of the orthodox ministers dare preach what he thinks if he knows a majority of his congregation think otherwise. He knows that every member of his church stands guard over his brain with a creed, like a club, in his hand. He knows that he is not expected to search after the truth, but that he is employed to defend the creed. Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll

A church without symbols, a church without baptism or communion where only the real things mattered and where the atonement must be as real as the sin itself, where for instance if you broke a playmate's toy in anger you must go home immediately and fetch a toy of your own, of as good or better quality, and give it to that playmate for keeps and then announce your error at Public Amending on Sunday. ~ Anne Tyler

Women with bare arms are not allowed into church, but they let naked Jews dig their own graves. ~ Ernst Bloch

For many people, morality means a set of rules governing the disposition on one's genital organs; or a set of injunctions against lying, stealing, or killing except when such acts are sanctioned by church or state. ~ Marilyn French

While Missy has acquired a taste for frog legs, she still doesn't understand my fascination with catching them. One night after church, we were stopped at an intersection while driving home. Our two sons, Reed and Cole, and our daughter, Mia, were in Missy's car with us. It was raining, and I saw one of the biggest bullfrogs I've ever seen sitting in the middle of the road. I put her car in park.
"What are you about to do, Jason?" Missy asked me.
"I'm going to catch that frog," I said. "Y'all want to flag traffic for me?"
"Don't you dare get out of this car," she said.
Before she could finish her sentence, I'd jumped out of the driver's seat and was maneuvering my way to the frog. I moved toward the back of it, assumed the frog position, and then leaped on him! Missy and Mia were screaming in the car, and my boys were laughing. As I got back in the car, I explained to everyone that I probably saved that frog's life by catching him at a busy intersection. I held the frog in one hand and drove with the other the entire way home.
When I walked into the kitchen, Missy asked me, "What are you fixing to do?"
I cleaned the frog on the kitchen table and fried its legs in a frying pan.
"I can't believe you just did that," Missy said. "I thought you saved his life."
Hey, but I gave him a noble death. ~ Jase Robertson

The cast and the crew made me feel really welcome. Towards the end it just got better and better. ~ Charlotte Church

'Safe Harbor' is a state of mind ... it's the place - in reality or metaphor - to which one goes in times of trouble or worry. It can be a friendship, marriage, church, garden, beach, poem, prayer, or song. ~ Luanne Rice

If you limit worship to where you are, the minute you leave that place of worship you will leave your attitude of worship behind like a crumpled-up church bulletin. ~ Tony Evans

God does hear and answer prayers. I have never doubted that fact. From childhood, at my mother's knee where I first learned to pray; as a young man in my teens; as a missionary in foreign lands; as a father; as a Church leader; as a government official, I know without question that it is possible for men and women to reach out in humility and prayer and tap that Unseen Power; to have prayers answered. Man does not stand along, or, at least, he need not stand alone. Prayer will open doors; prayer will remove barriers; prayer will ease pressures; prayer will give inner peace and comfort during times of strain and stress and difficult. Thank God for prayer ~ Ezra Taft Benson

By faith we proclaim that we are "justified". By His sinless sacrifice Jesus declares and makes us "righteous" by giving us His very own righteousness! ~ John Paul Warren

Suddenly polite and cherubic, Judge Pearl addressed the defendant, a voting citizen. "Mr. Jordan, have you had a chance to meet with your attorney? ~ Mark M. Bello

Without an old country link and a strangling church like the Italians, or the Irish, or the Poles, without generations of the American forebears to bind you to American life, or blind you by your loyalties to its deformities, you could read whatever you wanted and write however and whatever you pleased. Alienated? Just another way to say 'set free.' A Jew set free from Jews - yet only by steadily maintaining self-consciousness as a Jew. That was the thrilling paradoxical kicker. ~ Philip Roth

I'll tell you one thing," Sorensen said. "If Hillary Clinton should ever become president, God forbid ... " The crowd hissed and booed. Sorensen raised his hands. "If, God forbid, something like that were ever to happen, one of the first things they'd try to do is tax the churches. You can count on that," he said. The crowd gasped at the audacity of the suggestion. I found it ironic that by singling out Hillary specifically, Sorensen had just done the one thing that made the church no longer deserve tax-free status. ~ Matt Taibbi

There's a lot of us who do not accept the culture of the bubbles. ~ Mike Huckabee

I got put out of my church choir because my pastor said, 'We can't have baby sister singing the blues and coming in here and singing on Sunday morning.' ~ Merry Clayton

In fact, I've met countless believers who have said, "The church is an organism, not an organization." Yet as they formed those very words, they continued to be devout members of churches that were organized along the lines of General Motors and Microsoft. ~ Frank Viola

Christians struggle with hypocrisy because of our core confusion about what Christianity means. We tend to believe that Christianity is more about being good than about following Jesus.5 If we believe this, when we try to share our beliefs with others, we talk more about attending church, praying a sinner's prayer, and becoming a good person than about Jesus. The result is that we become known for morality, not for our love of Jesus. ~ Dale Fincher

The existence of God, I discovered one day, is not a problem. Whether he exists or not doesn't affect us; in the slightest, and there is no reason to worry about something that doesn't affect us. But religion on the other hand does affect us; it stuck its pointed nose into even the most hidden depths of our lives. Like an invisible policeman, it had tried to keep our existence under surveillance, to regulate with its cruel, cold, hypocritical logic. As Jupiter castrated Saturn, so the church has tried to castrate all of us. ~ Francisco Rebolledo

I suddenly knew that religion, God - something beyond everyday life - was there to be found, provided one is really willing. And I saw that though what I felt in the church was only imagination, it was a step on the way; because imagination itself can be a kind of willingness - a pretense that things are real, due to one's longing for them. It struck me that this was somehow tied up with what the Vicar said about religion being an extension of art - and then I had a glimpse of how religion can really cure you of sorrow; somehow make use of it, turn it to beauty, just as art can make sad things beautiful.

I found myself saying: 'Sacrifice is the secret - you have to sacrifice things for art and it's the same
with religion; and then the sacrifice turns out to be a gain.' Then I got confused and I couldn't hold on to what I meant - until Miss Blossom remarked: 'Nonsense, duckie - it's prefectly simple. You lose yourself in something beyond yourself and it's a lovely rest.'

I saw that, all right. Then I thought: 'But that's how Miss Marcy cured her sorrow, too - only she lost herself in other people instead of in religion.' Which way of life was best - hers or the Vicar's? I decided that he loves God and merely likes the villagers, whereas she loves the villagers and merely likes God - and then I suddenly wondered if I could combine both ways, love God and my neighbor equally. Was I really willing to? ~ Dodie Smith

No one truly belongs to the church and is counted among God's children, unless he first becomes a new man. This ~ John Calvin

The Church has never changed its teaching on the sanctity of human life - it didn't make up a rule for the convenience of a particular time like a rule at a country club as the Governor would have us believe. ~ Wellington Mara

Persecution is an enemy the Church has met and mastered many times. Indifference could prove to be a far more dangerous foe. ~ Brother Andrew

Singing is my pleasure, but not in church, for the parson said the gargoyles must remain on the outside, not seek room in the choir stalls. So I sing inside the mountain of my flesh, and my voice is as slender as a reed and my voice has no lard in it. When I sing the dogs sit quiet and people who pass in the night stop their jabbering and discontent and think of other times, when they were happy. And I sing of other times, when I was happy, though I know that these are figments of my mind and nowhere I have been. But does it matter if the place cannot be mapped as long as I can still describe it? ~ Jeanette Winterson

The chief danger of the Church today is that it is trying to get on the same side as the world, instead of turning the world upside down. Our Master expects us to accomplish results, even if they bring opposition and conflict. Anything is better than compromise, apathy, and paralysis. God give to us an intense cry for the old-time power of the Gospel and the Holy Ghost! ~ A.B. Simpson

That's God," he said. "He goes by many names, many faces, but God is simply that - love. I find God in this church, in the faces of my parishioners. One man may find it in nature, in the majesty of a tree or a river," he said and then looked directly at Simon. "Or another man may find it in a woman's smile. Wherever it's to be found, it's to be cherished. When you find it, you hold onto it and nothing, no force, no evil can take it from you. It's yours forever. And that, my dear, is something very powerful. ~ Monique Martin

The older kind of Socialist, who had been trained to fight against something called 'class privilege', assumed that what is not hereditary cannot be permanent. He did not see that the continuity of an oligarchy need not be physical, nor did he pause to reflect that hereditary aristocracies have always been shortlived, whereas adoptive organisations such as the Catholic Church have sometimes lasted for hundreds or thousands of years. The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living. A ~ George Orwell

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

One of the landmines that church planters never dodge is the landmine
of leadership development. I will never forget the day when I realized
that there are no such things as 'ready-made leaders'. ~ Gary Rohrmayer

The most consistent musical experience I had growing up was church music. ~ Amy Grant