Quotes about Church

Being united to Christ means being united to every Christian. But that universal union must be given a living, breathing existence in a local church.

Our individual lives alone are not a sufficient witness. Our lives together as church communities are the confirming echo of our witness.

Yet the Bible teaches that the local church is the natural environment for discipling. In fact, it teaches that the local church is itself the basic discipler of Christians. It does this through its weekly gatherings and its accountability structures (this chapter), as well as its elders and its members (next chapter). These in turn provide the context for the one-on-one discipling we have been considering so far.

The church was custom built by Jesus, and we are all works in progress. We do not expect people to get their sin in order before attending church any more than a hospital expects people to get healed before they show up.

Indeed, the world is our mission field, and Jesus is our model incarnational missionary who went before us and now goes with us as we continue in his work by his Spirit as his church for his glory to our joy.

There are certain elements that Scripture prescribes for corporate worship services of the church. Many theologians refer to these as the elements of corporate worship, and they include the following: 1) Preaching34 2) Sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Table35 3) Prayer36 4) Reading Scripture37 5) Financial giving38 6) Singing and music

I, however, am also a fan of riot evangelism. As we read the book of Acts, we see that the church comes into being through a Spirit-empowered sermon by Peter on the day of Pentecost and not through some guy spending six months playing checkers with people, hoping to somehow earn the right to share the gospel.

older generation accounts for only 19 percent of the national church, they give 46 percent of the donations.

Three, Christians who practice repentance should be the only ones allowed into church membership and leadership.

Many modern Christians will take the best programs from every church while committing to no church. They even have a name for it: "church shopping.

We believe that the local church is a community of regenerated believers who confess Jesus Christ as Lord, and that the universal church is all of God's people in all times and places.

What happens if you walk into a church and try to find out what a man looks like?