A Quote by Erwin McManus
When the church becomes an institution, people are nothing more than volunteers to be recruited. When the church is a movement, our stewardship becomes the unleashing of our God-given gifts, talents, and passions.
Quote Topics
Quote Author
Related Quotes
At this time of crisis we cannot be concerned solely with ourselves, withdrawing into loneliness, discouragement and a sense of powerlessness in the face of problems. Please do not withdraw into yourselves! This is a danger: we shut ourselves up in the parish, with our friends, within the movement, with the like-minded... but do you know what happens? When the Church becomes closed, she becomes an ailing Church, she falls ill! That is a danger. . . .A Church closed in on herself is the same, a sick Church.
When we place our faith in Christ, God becomes our Father, we become his children, other believers become our brothers and sisters, and the church becomes our spiritual family. The family of God includes all believers in the past, the present, and the future.
When the church takes affairs of the state more seriously than they do Jesus, Pax Romana becomes its gospel and the president becomes the Son of God.
The church becomes irrelevant when it becomes purely a human creation. We are not all we were made to be when everything in our lives and churches can be explained apart from the work and presence of the Spirit of God.
Why would God send people to our church if we don't have a great dream? Why would God give a multigifted, multitalented, and multifinancially wealthy person to a church if the biggest thing you are going to do is paint the restrooms next year? That's bad stewardship.
A Christian who withdraws into himself, hiding all that the Lord has given him, is not a Christian! I would ask the many young people present to be generous with their God-given talents for the good of others, the Church and our world.
When we truly understand what it means to love as Jesus Christ loves us, the confusion clears and our priorities align. Our walk as disciples of Christ becomes more joyful. Our lives take on new meaning. Our relationship with our Heavenly Father becomes more profound. Obedience becomes a joy rather than a burden.
There is a movement bubbling up that goes beyond cynicism and celebrates a new way of living, a generation that stops complaining about the church it sees and becomes the church it dreams of.
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.
The incarnation began with Jesus and it has never stopped . . . God takes on flesh so that every home becomes a church, every child becomes the Christ-child, and all food and drink become a sacrament. God's many faces are now everywhere, in flesh, tempered and turned down, so that our human eyes can see him.
Each of us is a unique creation of our Heavenly Father. No two of us are completely alike. No one else has exactly the same gifts and talents that we have been given. We should increase those talents and gifts and use them to leverage our uniqueness.
Exporting Church employees to Latin America masks a universal and unconscious fear of a new Church. North and South American authorities, differently motivated but equally fearful, become accomplices in maintaining a clerical and irrelevant Church. Sacralizing employees and property, this Church becomes progressively more blind to the possibilities of Sacralizing person and community.
In our manner of speech, our plans of living, our dealings with others, our conduct and walk in the church and out of it-all should be done as becomes the gospel (Phil. 1:27).
More thinking is required, and we should all exercise our God-given right to think and be unafraid to express our opinions, with proper respect for those to whom we talk and proper acknowledgment of our own shortcomings. We must preserve freedom of the mind in the church and resist all efforts to suppress it. The church is not so much concerned with whether the thoughts of its members are orthodox or heterodox as it is that they shall have thoughts.
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.
Living is giving. We live life best as we give our strengths, gifts, and competencies in the service of God's mission. We are called to serve, not survive. Our giving makes a difference in our families, our work, our community, our world, and our church.
Related Authors
Brian Tracy Quotes
American
Author
Cassandra Clare Quotes
American
Author
Frederick Lenz Quotes
American
Author
Henry David Thoreau Quotes
American
Author
J. K. Rowling Quotes
English
Author
Jodi Picoult Quotes
American
Author
John Green Quotes
American
Author
Joyce Meyer Quotes
American
Author
Marianne Williamson Quotes
American
Author
Neil Gaiman Quotes
British
Author
Richelle Mead Quotes
American
Author
Rick Riordan Quotes
American
Author
Robert Kiyosaki Quotes
American
Author
Stephen King Quotes
American
Author
Terry Pratchett Quotes
English
Author
Virginia Woolf Quotes
British
Author