A Quote by Tony Evans
In the urban community, the church doesn't just take people to Heaven; it feeds, clothes, and houses them. It teaches them how to read and gets them jobs. The church should be doing all that. What the government should be doing is freeing up the church and supporting the church, as long as it is providing social services.
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Growing up in New Orleans, my mom and dad were churchgoers. I would go to church with them. Also, I was going to a Catholic school so I had a fascination with the Catholic Church mainly because, in my mind, (their services) didn't take as long. I was bouncing in between my mom's Baptist church, which was called Second Zion Baptist, and going to a Catholic Church.
If churches saw their mission in the same way, there is no telling what might happen. What if people were invited to come tell what they already know of God instead of to learn what they are supposed to believe? What if they were blessed for what they are doing in the world instead of chastened for not doing more at church? What if church felt more like a way station than a destination? What if the church’s job were to move people out the door instead of trying to keep them in, by convincing them that God needed them more in the world than in the church?
Today, we need a Church capable of walking at people's side, of doing more than simply listening to them; a Church which accompanies them on their journey.
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
The basic question 'will I obey Christ 's teaching?' is rarely taken as a serious issue. For example, to take one of Jesus' commands, that is relevant to contemporary life, I don't know of any church that actually teaches a church how to bless people who curse them, yet this is a clear command.
We're not opposed to Catholics having pride in their church, but that doesn't mean that every church that doesn't join them isn't a church.
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.
When I was growing up, I grew up in church--my father was a pastor--so when I was growing up in Trinidad, I'd close all the windows in the church and go in the church every day after school and get a little microphone and pretend all these people were in the pews, and I would sing to them.
The New Birth church is a church unto itself who has a board and it has a membership. How they choose to handle their leadership issues it's not something that we can control regardless of which side you stay on that issue. It is their church issue and their responsibility and their response. And I'm saying what I always said that we should just keep on praying for the New Birth church family.
The ministry of mercy, then, is the best advertising a church can have. It convinces a community that this church provides people with actions for their problems, not only talk. It shows the community that this church is compassionate.
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.
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 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.
It is time that the Protestant Church, the Church of the Son, should be one again with the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of the Father. It is time that man shall cease, first to live in the flesh, with joy, and then, unsatisfied, to renounce and to mortify the flesh.
In my leadership conferences, pastors ask, "Do you have a vision for my church?" Many times they want me to give them a picture of where they should go and what their church should look like. When these pastors do this, I always feel bad.
I've tried them all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball.
