I used to always sit in church looking out the windows at the boys, wondering if I could make an excuse to go out and, you know, go to the bathroom because all the outdoor toilets. But anyhow, I was only going out to see the boys.
I counted everything. I counted the steps to the road, the steps up to church, the number of dishes and silverware I washed... anything that could be counted, I did.
The downfall of the church will not come from a lack of apologetic teaching; it will come from disintegration of the families in the church.
The church as a whole has strayed quite far from biblical evangelism; that is, sharing the Gospel in the way that Jesus did, the way the Apostle Paul did, and the rest of the disciples and prophets in Scripture.
If you read back in the Bible, the letter of the apostle Paul to the church of Thessalonia, he said that in the latter days before the end of the age that the Earth would be caught up in what he called the birth pangs of a new order.
The daughter of an ordained minister, I had been forced to go to church since I was a toddler. I hated church and resented being forced to recite the Apostle's Creed, mumbling, 'I believe... ' when I didn't.
A church without women would be like the apostolic college without Mary. The Madonna is more important than the apostles, and the church herself is feminine, the spouse of Christ and a mother.
If you will stay with the majority of the Twelve Apostles, and the records of the Church, you will never be led astray.
It is a better thing to save souls for the Lord than to save treasures. He who sent forth his apostles without gold had not need of gold to form his Church. The Church possesses gold, not to hoard, but to scatter abroad and come to the aid of the unfortunate.
The Church, during the apostolic age, did not consist of isolated, independent congregations, but was one body, of which the separate churches were constituent members, each subject to all the rest, or to an authority which extended over all.
I get asked a lot why Apple's customers are so loyal. It's not because they belong to the Church of Mac! That's ridiculous.
Callings in the church, as important as they are, by their very nature are only for a period of time, and then an appropriate release takes place.
What I think is that we in the church - and especially I as an Archbishop - I'm responsible for maintaining our rules, and making sure we hold to unity in the Body of Christ.
There is but one Church in which men find salvation, just as outside the ark of Noah it was not possible for anyone to be saved.
There is a danger that threatens everyone in the church, all of us. The danger of worldliness. It leads us to vanity, arrogance and pride.
For years I thought my assignment or the Church's assignment was to articulate the Gospel and nothing more. Now I believe that if we don't support the verbal expression of the Gospel with physical demonstration of compassion, we are not imitating Jesus.
'We really shouldn't look like a church.' I've heard that so much I want to vomit. 'Why?' I ask. 'Do you want your bank to look like a bank? Do you want your doctor's office to look like a doctor's office, or would you prefer your doctor to dress like a clown?'
Therefore, the church is not absolutely necessary as an object of faith, not even for us today, for then Abraham and the other prophets would not have given assent to those things which were revealed to them from God without any intervening help of the church.
My primary assessment would be because American Christians tend to be incredibly self-indulgent, so they see the church as a place there for them to meet their needs and to express faith in a way that is meaningful for them.
The Church as a divine society possess an internal principle of life which is capable of assimilating the most diverse materials and imprinting her own image upon them.
