A Quote by Eddie Gibbs
Probably after Vietnam and Watergate, there was an increasing distrust of institutions, so that Jesus was still in, but the institutional church was no longer an attraction. So, I think that the dropping of the denominational label is to become more generic, less of a threat, less of a reminder of negative stereotypes if you've walked away from church.
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Christianity is not about good people getting better. If anything, it is good news for bad people coping with their failure to be good. The heart of the Christian faith is Good News, not good advice, good technique, or good behavior. Too many people have walked away from the church, not because they’re walking away from Jesus, but because the church has walked away from Jesus.
The Christian church, in its attitude toward science, shows the mind of a more or less enlightened man of the Thirteenth Century. It no longer believes that the earth is flat, but it is still convinced that prayer can cure after medicine fails.
The church must never become a government factory, carrying on a nationalized industry of religion with the people as the bolts and nuts; with God reduced to the role of cramped advocate of current national policy. Surely the pages of history are replete and the examples in many a foreign country convincing that this kind of church-state union-whatever the original motives, or however noble the original purposes-winds up with a state that is less than stable and a church that is less than sanctified, and with the poor still hungry.
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.
A few doors away was the Baptist Church, and as I walked towards it I began to think that people didn't want me to share their church. As I walked through the Baptist door I was tense, waiting for that tap on the shoulder…but instead I was given a hymn book and welcomed into the church. I sat through the service…This up and down treatment wasn't doing my nerves much good.
If there were more temple work done in the Church, there would be less of selfishness, less of contention, less of demeaning others.
I love the church. And the church is flawed. I think it's important that the issues of justice become important to the church. A lot of these churches don't necessarily take on justice because it affects dollars that come in. We need to start and assess the areas that we're in and not be so obsessed with becoming this big, huge church where everybody's pointing at one leader! We all should be pointing at Jesus, and if that's true we got to get to a place where the people become important to us. It kills me! It hurts me! Jesus has set the example. It's very clear!
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.
the Twelve Apostles are the most evident sign of Jesus' will regarding the existence and mission of his Church, the guarantee that between Christ and the Church there is no opposition: despite the sins of the people who make up the Church, they are inseparable. Therefore, a slogan that was popular some years back, 'Jesus yes, Church no,' is totally inconceivable with the intention of Christ. This individualistically chosen Jesus is an imaginary Jesus.
Be the Church - that is, be an evangelical movement that tells the world of God's passionate love for humanity. That, not institutional maintenance, is what the Church is for. When the Church is that, and does that, it flourishes.
The immense wealth of doctrine and institutions can become a handicap if we are trying to present all of that to a person who has lost all contact with the Church and no longer knows who Jesus is. That would be like clothing a baby with one of those enormous, heavy brocaded copes that priests and bishops used to wear. Instead, it is necessary to help this person establish a relationship with Jesus.
We need to become a more welcoming church, one that reaches out more to those who have walked away or who aren't very interested to begin with.
And I profess still, that whatsoever the church of England (the church, I say, not every doctor) shall forbid me to say in matterof faith, I shall abstain from saying it, excepting this point, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for my sins. As for other doctrines, I think it unlawful, if the church define them, for any member of the church to contradict them.
The quality of the Lord's church on earth, cannot be seen by any man, so long as he lives in the world, still less how the church in process of time has turned aside from good to evil
The quality of the Lord's church on earth, cannot be seen by any man, so long as he lives in the world, still less how the church in process of time has turned aside from good to evil.
I walked away from going to church when I was 8. I didn't set foot in another church until I was 28.
