Top 182 Congregation Quotes & Sayings - Page 2

If it came to saving the life of one priest or sacrificing the life of an entire congregation, the church would save the life of the priest. Which is backwards, of course.

As I've taught our congregation, within the Christian faith the question of homosexuality is not a question of biblical authority, but biblical interpretation.

I am a pastor, and I teach and preach the Bible to my congregation every week. But the Bible is not a manufacturer's handbook. Neither is it a science textbook nor a guidebook for public policy.

To see with one's own eyes, to feel and judge without succumbing to the suggestive power of the fashion of the day, to be able to express what one has seen and felt in a snappy sentence or even in a cunningly wrought word - is that not glorious? Is it not a proper subject for congregation?

The English are loth to express their feelings, but in my stall in the choir I could feel the pent-up, passionate emotion, and also the fear of the congregation, not of death or wounds or material loss, but of defeat and the final ruin of Britain.

When I was growing up there, North Gulfport was referred to as 'Little Vietnam' because of the perception of crime and depravity within its borders - as if its denizens were simply a congregation of the downtrodden.

My wife and I are affiliated with a temple here in Los Angeles. We feel very close to the congregation and to the rabbi, who happens to be my wife's cousin and who I admire greatly. I talk to him regularly but I consider myself more spiritual than religious.

One positive command he gave us: You shall love and honor your emperor. In every congregation a prayer must be said for the czar's health, or the chief of police would close the synagogue.

The more we study the early Church, the more we realize that it was a society of ministers. About the only similarity between the Church at Corinth and a contemporary congregation, either Roman Catholic or Protestant, is that both are marked, to a great degree, by the presence of sinners.

The really funny thing is that most all of my friends who are priests have seen me perform, and they say, 'I wish I could talk the way you do on stage. I wish I could reveal truth to my congregation the way you do.'

In mid-career, I was at one and the same time the rabbi of a major congregation, writing books, and teaching at Columbia. I didn't spend enough time with my children. Now, when I get an all-important call, I sometimes say that I'm having lunch with my granddaughter. And I do not apologize

I want a state funeral with bells ringing across the land! Then I'd love the congregation to do the hokey cokey and for can-can girls to dance down the aisle. I've already bought the plot in Worcestershire next to my parents.

Before I was elected to Congress, I had the honor of serving as the president of the Congregation Ner Tamid in Henderson, the largest Reform Synagogue in Southern Nevada. During my tenure, I witnessed firsthand the beauty in our country's religious diversity and how community engagement strengthens America.

Worship isn't God's show. God is the audience. God's watching. The congregation, they are the actors in this drama. Worship is their show. And the minister is just reminding the people of their forgotten lines.

Do you think that I am an old man? I could prove to this congregation that I am young; for I could find more girls who would choose me for a husband than can carry any of the young men.

As a kid spending weekends in the Ozarks, I remember my granny's preacher shaking his fist, his jowls waving in the wind not unlike a bloodhound's, excoriating the congregation and condemning it to hell.

Many old music hall fans were present at the funeral today of Fred 'Chuckles' Jenkins, Britain's oldest and unfunniest comedian. In tribute, the vicar read out one of Fred's jokes, and the congregation had two minutes silence.

You probably can't get much closer to God than serving a congregation 24/7. At the same time, there's a different kind of closeness in this present life I have in which I have much more freedom to come and go and to engage some of the silence and stillness and solitude that I was missing before.

Absolutely, although every congregation will say, you know, every worship leader will say it's vital. It's very important, but again these are, you know, these are different cultural styles.

Any musical person who has never heard a Negro congregation under the spell of religious fervor sing these old songs has missed one of the most thrilling emotions which the human heart may experience.

There are congressmen in our congregation, judges, federal reserve governors. And there are also people who are homeless and some who are mentally ill. To be able to talk to each of those people is something that I've had to learn how to do over the years.

My grandfather once ventured upon publishing a volume of hymns. I never heard anyone speak in their favour or argue that they ought to have been sung in the congregation. In that volume, he promised a second if the first should prove acceptable. We forgive him the first collection because he did not inflict another.

I don't think we should discriminate against an organization or congregation because they're religious, if they're doing good work. But government can't subsidize proselytizing or worship or religious activity. It can't.

In social institutions, the whole is always less than the sum of its parts. There will never be a state as good as its people, or a church worthy of its congregation, or a university equal to its faculty and students.

When the rest of the congregation rose at the entrance of the choir he kept his seat. He argued that rising to one's feet at such a time tended to make the choir-boys conceited.

George Washington participated as a vestryman in his local congregation, but that didn't really imply any particular kind of religious belief. This was necessary in order to participate in the society.

I am a youth minister, ordained by the Riverside Church in upper New York. But to declare myself a minister and begin to preach from the pulpit, from the Bible, to a congregation and to build a church, so to speak - I don't have a desire for that.

Of all the doctors I have known, psychoanalysts, a congregation of lay priests with bible, rites, and the faithful, constitute the most sinister, the most ridiculous, the most unwholesome of the species.

Focus on the mind and the soul. Read. Study. Enrol in a course of lectures. Pray. Become a member of a religious congregation. Study the Bible or other ancient works of wisdom.

I have no respect for the right-to-life position. But when you legislate personal belief, you're in violation of freedom of religion. The Catholic Church may espouse its opinion on abortion to the members of its congregation. But they are in violation of separation of church and state when they try to proselytize their abortion politics on people who are not Catholics.

A group is as healthy as its 'social contract' is clear; a congregation as faithful as its covenant is mutually understood; a pastor as effective as the pastor's and people's commitment to trust and integrity is honored, guarded, and fulfilled.

I am also actively involved in my church and its community activities. We have programs to improve the lives of our congregation and programs of outreach in the community.

My third day playing saxophone, I was in front of a congregation. I still didn't know the names of all the notes. I was playing by ear, following along, but it was such an encouraging environment, I couldn't fail. It was all, 'Yeah baby, you sound real good' no matter what you play. It was a great way to learn.

I've traveled all over the country for years speaking in churches, teaching the Ten Commandments. It's amazing if 2 percent of any congregation knows the Ten Commandments.

He was one of those men who, even in the years of peace, would have advised his congregation that while God may well be honored by the inflexibility of the pious, he might also be honored by the flexibility of the sensible.

I couldn't give you a count of the number of single women I have in our congregation that are serving in very significant ways in the community. Our desire is for them to live all of life to the glory of God whether God calls them to be a wife or a mother or not.

The church grew, and I gained a reputation for preaching, and people came, and it was a wonderful community. But we had a building that seated 82 people, and with a congregation then approaching 400 we were up to four services on Sunday, and everyone was tired.

[A novel by Henry James] is like a church lit but without a congregation to distract you, with every light and line focused on the high altar. And on the altar, very reverently place, intensely there, is a dead kitten, an egg-shell, a bit of string.

The trouble with being a secular humanist is that we don't have a congregation. We don't meet so it's a very flimsy tribe, but there's a wonderful quotation from Nietzsche. Nietzsche said, Only a person of deep faith can afford the luxury of skepticism. Something perfectly is going on. I do not doubt it, but the explanations I hear do not satisfy me.

There was a time when ministers spoke forthrightly and named things. We don't name anything anymore. Finney had a sermon on How to Preach so as to Convert Nobody. He said 'Preach on sin but never mention any of the sins of your congregation - that will do it.'

I don't have any complaints about homosexuals being married in a civil ceremony. But I don't think that the government ought to require religious organizations, churches, should perform marriages between homosexuals if a local congregation decides otherwise. I believe in the autonomy of individual churches.

I found myself in a maze where I'd taken the wrong turn. In my wish to do well for that congregation I wasn't doing particularly well for myself or my friends or my family, and I even found that the work for God was taking me away from God.

Or perhaps you notice a congregation of ladybugs on a rose stalk. Don't invoke the old nursery saying and ask them to fly away home. Their house is not on fire. Your roses are, with aphids, which the ladybugs are feeding on - and you can bless yourself that they have come to your rescue.

A good church is a Bible-centered church. Nothing is as important as this--not a large congregation, a witty pastor, or tangible experiences of the Holy Spirit.

I should not like to preach to a congregation who all believed as I believe. I would as lief preach to a basket of eggs in their smooth compactness and oval formality.

I am humbled and deeply honored to have been asked to serve the congregants of Shearith Israel, a congregation with an incomparable history, where some of America's most distinguished rabbis have pastored and preached.

When I was young, I was dedicated to become a minister - my brothers and I were formally brought in front of the congregation in a dedication ceremony, where we were dedicated to the future service of God.

In the John Paul II days, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had the advantage of staying in his cupboard - the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - exchanging views only with the Pope, and speaking publicly only through carefully written missives on doctrinal issues.

I remember what J. Golden Kimball said when he came down to the stake where I was presiding. I introduced him as the 'Will Rogers' of the Church, and told the congregation that he was a great humorist. When he got up he said, 'You know, I think the Lord himself likes a joke. If he didn't, he wouldn't have made some of you folks!

The fact that a man is to vote forces him to think. You may preach to a congregation by the year and not affect its thought because it is not called upon for definite action. But throw your subject into a campaign and it becomes a challenge.

It ought to be considered a great misfortune, not only for individuals, but also for Houses and Congregations, to have everything in conformity with their wishes; to go on quietly, and to suffer nothing for the love of God. Yes, consider it certain that a person or a Congregation that does not suffer and is applauded by all the world is near a fall.

The decision to allow clergy to perform same-sex marriages at the discretion of the congregation poses challenges for seminaries training new pastors who come from denominations fundamentally opposed on biblical grounds to same-sex marriage.

I do not like the late resurrection of the Jesuits. . . . If ever any congregation of men could merit eternal perdition on earth, and in hell, according to these historians, though, like Pascal, true Catholics, it is this company of Loyolas.

I know a parson who frightened his congregation terribly by telling them the second coming was very imminent indeed, but they were much consoled when they found he was planting trees in his garden.

The umpire had comical news. The congregation had been theoretically spotted from the air by a theoretical enemy. They were all theoretically dead now. The theoretical corpses laughed and ate a hearty noontime meal.

To appear at church every Sunday; to look down upon, and let himself be looked at for an hour by the congregation, is the best means of becoming popular which can be recommended to a young sovereign.

How do I feel when I am invited to a congregation of scientists? I feel quite at home. When they break into their cultic scientific argot, I know when I'm not wanted and step out for a drink.

They will be like shadows, they will be like wraiths, gray members of a congregation of nightmare; hark! his long wavering howl . . . an aria of fear made audible. The wolfsong is the sound of the rending you will suffer, in itself a murdering.

Then of course there are bigger things that matter, like who do I see up there in the congregation? Do I see myself up there? Well, I don't.

Henceforth it will be the task of this Sacred Congregation not only to examine carefully the books denounced to it, to prohibit them if necessary, and to grant permission for reading forbidden books, but also to supervise, ex officio, books that are being published, and to pass sentence on such as deserve to be prohibited.