Pastors have historically understood their primary battle to be not the battle to build a big church, but the battle against the power of sin.
Churches we build only by our own efforts and not in the strength of the Spirit will quickly collapse when we don't push and prod people along.
The Ethical Society, therefore, is like a Church in maintaining, and emphasizing the importance of maintaining the custom of public assemblies on Sunday.
If I could believe the Quakers banned music because church music is so damn bad, I should view them with approval.
I come from an African Caribbean background. I've been influenced by a reggae church music style, contemporary gospel, and rock all fused together.
I was born in Alabama and my first live music experiences were in church. Every Sunday we watched regional gospel groups on television singing their hearts out.
When you listen to my music, you hear that there are all these voices going on in different parts of the song. That's because I was always around so many voices in church.
I think records and music are more appropriate and more respectful of the human soul than the churches are. And more respectful of the needs of humans to communicate with the aspects of themselves that are neglected by language.
My father's a deacon, my mother's a choir director, so I grew up in the church and singing in the choir, begging my mom if I could have a solo.
The only economic paradigm that movies have ever known is capitalism. There were no church sponsors or state patronage. The idea was that if you'd pay to see it, we'll make it for you.
Let's start with the church. As you know, it's my background, it's a natural setting for me and it's definitely my roots.
He cannot have God for his Father who will not have the Church for his mother.
The seminaries must be like the churches' poor relations, prolonging their existence with austerity.
It's not enough to attend church and pray every Sunday; you have to act.
All Church power is, therefore, properly ministerial and administrative. Everything is to be done in the name of Christ, and in accordance with his directions.
Many people who no longer go to church end up falling prey to superstition.
My mother was the first singer I had contact with. She sang constantly to us around the house, in church.
I saw a photograph of a wedding conducted by Reverend Moon of the Unification Church. I wanted to understand this event, and the only way to understand it was to write about it.
For centuries the leaders of Christian thought spoke of women as a necessary evil, and the greatest saints of the Church are those who despise women the most.
The fact that the church is convinced of not having the right to confer priestly ordination on women is now considered by some as irreconcilable with the European Constitution.
Prior to the Civil War, most libraries were either privately owned or housed in universities or churches.
