Church

There can be no Word of God without the people of God.

Martin Luther, quoted by The Reverend 

Dr. Colin Morris: The Word and the Words

Church

The Church is nothing but a section of humanity in which Christ has really taken form.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, quoted by J. V. Taylor The Go-between God

Church

We must say bluntly that when the church ceases to be a mission, then she ceases to have any right to the titles by which she is adorned in the New Testament.

Lesslie Newbigin, quoted by Richard G Jones,
Anthony J Wesson Towards a Radical Church

Church

St. Augustine, somewhere, has a phrase about the Church of his day, as, like a frost-bound tree, seeming dead, but waiting for the summer. Sacred Trinity had every sign of being dead but waiting for nothing.

Canon Peter Green quoted by Rev. H. E. Sheen

Church

The Church exists by mission, just as a fire exists by burning.

Emil Brunner

Church

The Church is her true self only when she exists for humanity.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Church

The Protestant idea of a church, expressed in the Augsburg Confession, and in very similar terms in the Thirty Nine Articles (nineteenth article) is that the visible church is a congregation of faithful or believing men, “In which the pure Word of God is preached and the sacraments administered according to Christ’s ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same. “

Henry Wace: Principles of the Reformation

Church

Wherever we see the word of God sincerely preached and heard, wherever we see the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ, there we cannot have any doubt that the Church of God has some existence, since his promise cannot fail, ‘Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst.’

Calvin: Institution IV 1.9 quoted by Lesslie Newbigin:
The Household of God

Church

Wherever you see this word preached, believed, confessed and acted on, do not doubt that there must be a true ecclesia sancta catholica...for God’s word does not go away empty.

Martin Luther quoted by Lesslie Newbigin: The Household of God

Church

The Church is the fellowship of the dead to themselves and alive for Christ.

Nels Ferré: in Christ and the Christian; quoted by 

William Barclay: Plain Man Looks at the Beatitudes

Church

The Church is not a community of escape. It is a community of expectancy.

Max Warren: The Christian Mission

Church

‘Sire, it is in truth the lot of the Church of God, in whose name I speak, to suffer blows and not to return them. Yet I also take leave to remind you that she is an anvil which has employed many hammers.’

Addressed by Beza to the King of Navarre after the
massacre of Vassey. J.S. Whale: The Protestant Tradition

Church

The Church is a siding into which Christianity has been shunted to keep it out of the traffic on the main line. Every now and then the driver of the shunted train tries to get it going again (while his mates sit around drinking) and when he is feeling particularly bold he blows the whistle.

Pierre Ceresole

Church

The ultimate criterion to distinguish a false or moribund church from a true and living church is the power of Jesus Christ himself.

John Mackay: God’s Order