Congregation Quotes

“Between Monday and Saturday men make an audience. On Sunday, they make a congregation.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“[...] like any human practices, those of religions are not exempt from ethical questioning. Rituals and rites in groups change behavior, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. For the madness of crowds is a very close cousin to the fervor or congregations and the martial spirit of armies.”
― Simon Blackburn, Mirror, Mirror: The Uses and Abuses of Self-Love

“Most priests wish they were as righteous as they seem to most members of their congregations.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“When you are close to Christ, you are enclosed in liberty. You can never be intimidated by man if you are intimate with Christ.”
― Israelmore Ayivor

“A church leadership that cannot provide members with business ideas should stop demanding tithe from them. Plant greatness in the members and they pay greatly; Plant zero in them and they pay in negatives!”
― Israelmore Ayivor, The Great Hand Book of Quotes

“Whenever He answers prayers, God usually prioritizes those by people who, instead of their mouths, have prayed with their hands and/or feet.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“The hand that pockets the corrupt coin places it in the collection plate seeking absolution.”
― Stewart Stafford

“The word 'church' in the Bible is a mistranslation of the Greek word 'ekklesia.' The accurate translation is 'assembly' or 'congregation.' Literally 'ekklesia' means the 'called out ones.' The common usage of this word during the apostles' time was for a called out assembly of people, such as a town square meeting, where citizens were 'called out' to attend.”
― Henry Hon, ONE: Unfolding God's Eternal Purpose from House to House

“Our bread was given, not earned. We had nowhere else to go and nothing else to do but sit there together, saying sonorous words in unison, listening to language we did not hear anywhere else in our lives. Take heart. Go in peace. Bear fruit. Although we could have sat quietly with Bibles on our laps and read these things to ourselves, we took turns reading them out loud to each other instead. The words sounded different when Kline read them than they did when Kathy read them. They sounded different from the mouth of a young mother than they did from the mouth of a widow. This was because the words did not come straight off the page. They percolated up through the silt and gravel of real people's lives so that the meaning in them was fluid, not fixed. Listening to one another read Holy Scripture, some of us learned what is meant by 'the living word of God.'

We also sang things we could more easily have said. The Lord be with you. And also with you. None of us would have dreamed of doing this in the grocery store, but by doing it in church we remembered that there was another way to address one another. Lift up your hearts. We lift them up unto the Lord. Where else did any of us sing anymore, especially with other people? Where else could someone pick up the alto line on the second verse of 'Amazing Grace' and give five other people the courage to sing in harmony? Sometimes, when we were through, we would all just stand there listening until the last note turned entirely to air.

We could even be quiet together, which was something else that did not happen many other places in our lives. Silence was so countercultural for most of us that it took a lot of practice before we could do it together.”
― Barbara Brown Taylor, Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith

“Live your life in such a way that when a video coverage is taken of you either in light or in the darkness, it can receive an applause when it is shown in your chapel for everyone to view!”
― Israelmore Ayivor, The Great Hand Book of Quotes

“Just preaching "you are blessed" to a congregation is like giving them a big fertile land. They need the seeds to plant on it; they need business ideas, a little of which is enough!”
― Israelmore Ayivor, The Great Hand Book of Quotes

“Ndani ya chumba, akiwa bado amechanganyikiwa, akiwa hajui Debbie alikokwenda, Murphy alisikia walinzi wakipiga kelele nje. Kamanda huwa anakuwa shetani nyakati kama hizo. Alibeba pumzi. Mikononi mwake akiwa na M-16, Debbie kichwani; Murphy alishangaza umati wa watu! Risasi zaidi ya sitini zilifyatuka katika bunduki, mlango wote ukabomoka – ndani ya sekunde kumi!”
― Enock Maregesi, Kolonia Santita

“I imagine the whole universe moving into hell because of licking God's candy.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Classic Quotations From The Otherworlds

“Instead it is the Church hierarchy that is rather teaching congregation to be afraid of darkness, instead of teaching them to go with light to overcome darkness.”
― Sunday Adelaja

“We are members of the Church of Christ”
― Sunday Adelaja

“A part of me is always suspicious of groups. I am by nature a solitary animal. I like to do things my way, and in my own good time. I'm resistant to timetables and demands on my attention, and to the kind of politics that always seem to arise between adults who join clubs. I hate organised fun. Overall, I prefer to make my own ad hoc arrangements with a couple of close friends. But more and more I crave being part of a congregation, a group of people with whom I can gather to reflect and contemplate, to hear the ways that others have soled this puzzling problem of existence. Mosts of all, I want them to hold me to account, to keep me on track, to urge me towards doing good. Holding spiritual believes on my own is lonely. I want to be part of a group that makes me return to ideas that bewilder and challenge me.”
― Katherine May, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age

“What can there be that is splendid in my life? - a farmer's son, with perhaps the chance of a country church as my highest hope - after all kinds od signings, and confessions, and calls, and presbyteries. It would be splendid indeed to be plucked by a country presbytery that didn't know six words of Greek, or objected to by a congregation of ploughmen.”
― Mrs. Oliphant, A Son of the Soil