#church

We may be little, insignificant servants in the eyes of a world motivated by efficiency, control and success. But when we realize that God has chosen us from all eternity, sent us into the world as the blessed ones, handed us over to suffering, can't we, then, also trust that our little lives will multiply themselves and be able to fulfill the needs of countless people? ↗

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

#god-s-children #the-church #life

Our lack of community is intensely painful. A TV talk show is not community. A couple of hours in a church pew each Sabbath is not community. A multinational corporation is neither a human nor a community, and in the sweatshops, defiled agribusiness fields, genetic mutation labs, ecological dead zones, the inhumanity is showing. Without genuine spiritual community, life becomes a struggle so lonely and grim that even Hillary Clinton has admitted "it takes a village". ↗

— David James Duncan

#clinton #community #corporations #environment #spirituality

I've always wondered how much can you do for your fellow man if your hands are constantly stuck together in Prayers for them? ↗

— Stanley Victor Paskavich

#life #prayers #religion #life

Just say it: I'm angry and no one will like me. God: No, I will not say that. But don't you think we ached for you to find a love you could share your whole life with? I used your teachers to encourage you creatively when the church could not... I worked with whatever I got my hands on. Can you see that? ↗

— Susan E. Isaacs

#circumstances #god #life #love #perspective

One great idea of the biblical revelation is that God is manifest in the ordinary, in the actual, in the daily, in the now, in the concrete incarnations of life, and not through purity codes and moral achievement contests, which are seldom achieved anyway… We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking… The most courageous thing we will ever do is to bear humbly the mystery of our own reality. ↗

— Richard Rohr

#culture #theology #courage

Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together. ↗

— James Madison

#government #religion #religion

I am accountable. I am correctable. I am transformable. Presenting myself a living sacrifice to God. By the love of God. By the word of God. Completely supplied in Christ Jesus. Unto all good works. ↗

— Carlton T. Brown

#church #inspirational #religion #death

The world is my church. My actions are my prayer. My behavior is my creed. ↗

— Steve Maraboli

#behavior #church #creed #inspirational #motivational

In a number of workshops, I have asked people whether they have had one or more experiences that they would identify as an experience of God and, if so, to share them in small groups. On average, 80 percent of the participants identify one or more and are eager to talk about them. They also frequently report that they had never before been asked that question in a church setting or given an opportunity to talk about it. ↗

— Marcus J. Borg

#experience #faith #god #experience

Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#government #organized-religion #religion #separation-of-church-and-state #faith