Happy Quote Day

"The church has historically avoided seeing itself as family and as community.... It would have necessitated communion and communication instead of law and dogma.... Quite frankly, it would necessitate falling in love and losing a bit of precious control. It would lead us into pursuit of understanding when what we want is certainty."
- Richard Rohr

"The greatest need in our time is not simply for kerygma, the preaching of the gospel, nor for diakonia, service on behalf of justice, nor for charisma, the experience of the Spirit's gifts, nor even for propheteia, the challenging of the king. The greatest need of our time is for koinonia, the call to simply be the church—to love one another and to offer our life for the sake of the world. The creation of living, breathing, loving communities of faith at the local church level is the foundation of all the other answers."
- Jim Wallis, “Rebuilding the Church,” Jan. 1980, Sojourners.

"To hate the church for its failures is like a pastor hating the person who comes in need of healing. Only those who have come to feel a genuine love for the church will be able to confront it with its own faithlessness and call it back to its true vocation.

To rebuild the church means to have and to hold forth a vision of its healing and wholeness. Only then can we truly call the church to repentance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
--Jim Wallis, "Rebuilding the Church," Jan. 1980, Sojourners.

Three very apt quotes on the church and its tendency to be coopted, or to be unfaithful to its founding values.