If believers worship with gladness and passion, anyone not yet a part of the community certainly will be attracted to the One who is the object of their worship. But to focus the worship on evangelistic introduction deprives believers of deeper nurturing toward Church being and deprives God of the intimate and involved worship due him from the Church.
Marva J. Dawn
Short Biography
The Church that does not evangelize will fossilize.
Oswald J. Smith
Biography
There is little good in filling churches with people who go out exactly the same as they came in; the call of the Church is not to fill churches but to fill heaven.
Anonymous
Seducers are more dangerous enemies to the church than persecutors.
Matthew Henry
Biography
To a true child of God, the invisible bond that unites all believers to Christ is far more tender, and lasting, and precious; and, as we come to recognize and realize that we are all dwelling in one sphere of life in Him, we learn to look on every believer as our brother, in a sense that is infinitely higher than all human relationships. This is the one and only way to bring disciples permanently together. All other plans for promoting the unity of the Church have failed.
Arthur Tappan (A. T.) Pierson
Online Library
Why does the Church stay indoors? They have a theology that has dwindled into a philosophy, in which there is no thrill of faith, no terror of doom and no concern for souls. Unbelief has put out the fires of passion, and worldliness garlands the altar of sacrifice with the tawdry glitter of unreality. The Holy Spirit cannot conquer the world with unbelief, nor can He save the world with a worldly Church. He calls for a crusade, a campaign, and an adventure of saving passion. For this enterprise He wants a separated, sanctified and sacrificial people.
Samuel Chadwick
Biography
People seem to think that the masses are outside the Christian church because our evangelistic methods are not what they ought to be. That is not the answer. People are outside the church because looking at us they say, "What is the point of being Christians? - look at them!" They are judging Christ by you and me. And you cannot stop them and you cannot blame them.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Martyn Lloyd-Jones Website
In the Church of God two opposite dangers are to be recognized and avoided; they are a cold heart and a hot head.
A. W. Tozer
The Works Of A. W. Tozer
It is startling to discover how many people there are who heartily dislike and despise Christianity without having the faintest notion what it is. If you tell them, they cannot believe...that anything so interesting, so exciting and so dramatic can be the orthodox creed of the Church.
Dorothy Sayer
Truth demands confrontation; loving confrontation, but confrontation nevertheless. If our reflex action is always accommodation, regardless of the centrality of the truth involved, there is something wrong. Just as what we may call holiness without love is not God's kind of holiness, so also what we may call love without holiness, is not God's kind of love...A false spirit of accommodation is sweeping the world as well as the Church, including those who claim the label of evangelical.
Francis A. Schaeffer
The Shelter
In our physical bodies a toothache makes the whole body react in sympathy; the cessation of that ache makes the whole body give a sigh of relief. Why can't it be that way in the Church? Is it because we're so blind to the close and sympathetic union that Scripture enjoins between the members, that we allow the folly of selfishness to take the place of the wisdom of unselfishness?
Anonymous
In this new community where Christ is head, things are different. Here people are less concerned with finding their life than with losing it for Christ. Here meekness, not muscle, is the mark of greatness. If the church is not radically different from the world, something is radically wrong. To be salt and light in the world implies a marked contrast between the way of life in the world and the way of life in the church.
Anonymous
There is a story of a man who was walking down the street. He paused at a used book store, and in the window he saw a book with the title, How to Hug. He was taken by the title and, being somewhat of a romantic nature, went in to buy the book. To his chagrin, he discovered it was the seventh volume of an encyclopedia and covered the subjects "How" to "Hug". Everyone knows that the church is a place where love ought to be manifested, and many people have come to church hoping to find a demonstration of love - only to discover an encyclopedia on theology.
Ray C. Stedman
How to Hug
It is not persecution of the church in China that I fear. The church has always been able to weather persecution. My fear is love of money in the church.
Anonymous Chinese Pastor
Men are God's method. The church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men who the Holy Spirit can use - men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not come on machinery but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men - men of prayer.
Edward McKendree (E. M.) Bounds
Public Domain Texts
Sound Bible exposition is an imperative must in the Church of the Living God. Without it no church can be a New Testament church in any strict meaning of that term. But exposition may be carried on in such a way as to leave the hearers devoid of any true spiritual nourishment whatever. For it is not mere words that nourish the soul, but God Himself, and unless and until the hearers find God in personal experience they are not the better for having heard the truth. The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in Hispresence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and centre of their hearts.
A. W. Tozer
The Works Of A. W. Tozer
If you trust yourself to walk in the light of your own conscience, uninstructed or little instructed by the Word of God, you will end up doing things that you are deeply and sincerely convinced are right. But they may be terribly hurtful and destructive within the Church.
R. C. Stedman
There is a toleration which is treachery. There is a peace which issues in paralysis. There are hours when the Church must say NO to those who should ask communion with her, in the doing of her work, upon the basis of compromise. Such standing aloof may produce ostracism and persecution; but it will maintain power and influence...The reason why men do not look to the Church today is that she has destroyed her own influence by compromise.
G. Campbell Morgan
Biography
In every revival there is a re-emphasis of the Church's missionary character. Men return to Calvary, and the world is seen afresh through the eyes of Christ. The infinite compassion of Christ fills the heart, and the passion evoked by Calvary demands the whole wide world as the fruit of His sacrifice.
John Shearer
If the Lord were to pour out revival upon the Body in the condition that we are in now, our current lack of unity would hinder us from being an adequate 'vessel' to hold and maintain the revival that He would pour out...I have changed my priority in prayer to pray for unity first, then revival. Unity in the Body is a direct answer to Jesus' prayer in John 17, and a unified Body provides a proper 'vessel" into which revival can be poured out.
Joy Dawson
Youth With A Mission
With some men it would seem, if they could control God's operations and manipulate His actions they might tolerate a revival; but to allow God a free hand, fills them with righteous indignation and horror. If only God would consent to become an 'ecclesiastic' and respect their dignity and decorum and beautiful order of service and ways of running the Church, they might condescend to have a revival.
William P. Nicholson
Biography
The work of God can only be carried on by the power of God. The church is a spiritual organism fighting spiritual battles: only spiritual power can make it perform as God ordained. When we sincerely turn to God, we find that His church always moves forward, never backward.
Jim Cymbala
The Brooklyn Tabernacle
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