The Christian life is not just our own private affair. If we have been born again into God's family, not only has he become our Father but every other Christian believer in the world, whatever his nation or denomination, has become our brother or sister in Christ. But it is no good supposing that membership of the universal Church of Christ is enough; we must belong to some local branch of it. Every Christian's place is in a local church. sharing in its worship, its fellowship, and its witness.
For a Christian to be a Christian, he must first be a sinner. Being a sinner is a prerequisite for being a church member. The Christian church is one of the few organizations in the world that requires a public acknowledgement of sin as a condition for membership.
I'm afraid I haven't become a born-again Christian. I'm sort of 'Church of England, lapsed' is about as far as I go.
There are certain times in a concert when I'll call an audible because I feel like God is calling me to play a different song. But truthfully, I feel called to play for the church whether it's song being played on Christian radio or it's concerts I'm doing primarily in churches.
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.
If Jesus remained dead, how can you explain the reality of the Christian church and its phenomenal growth in the first three centuries of the Christian era? Christ's church covered the Western world by the fourth century. A religious movement built on a lie could not have accomplished that....All the power of Rome and of the religious establishment in Jerusalem was geared to stop the Christian faith. All they had to do was to dig up the grave and to present the corpse. They didn't.
You are either a Christian or you are not a Christian; you cannot be partly a Christian. You are either "dead" or "alive"; you are either "born" or "not born".
Although I claim to be a Christian, I live at a moment in time when the Christian faith is being defined by fundamentalists who have dishonored Christ and are in the process of destroying His church. I refuse to wear the 'Christian' label without redefining it.
The true idea of a church has not yet been shown the world, a visible Church, I mean, unless it was in the very earliest times; yes, the twelve disciples bound to their Lord in love, to do his work forever, that was a church, a Christian family.
To be active in a church social life or church activities or even a church mission to help the hungry or reach the poor, but really our dedication has to be born out of an infatuation with Jesus.
One of the most persistent fallacies about the Christian Church is that it kept learning alive during the Dark and Middle Ages. What the Church did was to keep learning alive in the monasteries, while preventing the spread of knowledge outside them... Even as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, nine-tenths of Christian Europe was illiterate.
In a Christian Theocracy, you'll never be Christian enough. There's always going to be somebody there with another version of Christianity that is more Christian than you and you're going to lose the freedom to make the choice because you didn't defend the Separation of Church and State when you had the chance.
I was raised a Christian. I'd like to think I have Christian values. I don't attend church.
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.
The Christian marginality of women has its roots in the patriarchal beginnings of the church and in the androcentrism of Christian revelation.
It is the voice of the Church that is heard in singing together. It is not you that sings, it is the Church that is singing, and you, as a member of the Church, may share in its song.