Church Culture Quotes

I have seen too many of my male friends - no matter whether they're on the football field or inside a church - bash gays and then revel in their machismo or piety.

It's all that pretending to be perfect that breeds inauthenticity in the church.

I know specifically me being somebody who has had most of my experiences within the black church, that's cultural... you gotta put on your church clothes when you got to church...and it's nothing wrong with that - that's absolutely fine! But I think what's happening to a new generation ,the hip hop generation, there's astigmatism, a feeling that I'm unwelcome.

When I look back at the church I grew up in, I realise that nothing about its behaviour was very Christian. It was just a social club on Sundays where people would meet up with their mates.

If you've ever made change in the offering plate, you might be a redneck.

The Church must stop expecting outsiders to act like insiders while insiders act like outsiders.

Once, John and I were coming form a concert that he had played, and it was late in the morning. We heard a couple leaving, and the lady said, oh, I have to hurry home. I'm going to church tomorrow. And her friends said, church? You've already been to church.

I think whites are used to being in power, so when whites think we ought to have integrated churches they think, "People ought to come to our church. What can we do to get them to come?"

When pastors don't have rich spiritual lives with Christ, they become victimized by other models of success - models conveyed to them by their training, by their experience in the church, or just by our culture.

We played, jazz, blues, dixie, and it all came from the church. When I went to church, I would see the sisters and brothers doing the same beat.

You can't take a kid from north Alabama and growing up in church - some of that is just gonna seep out.

The church that weds itself to the culture of the day, will be a widow with each succeeding age.

Playing football and rugby is the Samoan sport. It's part of the conversation at church. It's part of the conversation in their barbershops, in the grocery stores. It's what everyone is aware of and familiar with. They take a lot of pride in the beating you can take in the course of that sport.

The culture of women in the church today is crippled by some very pervasive lies. "To be spiritual is to be busy. To be spiritual is to be disciplined. To be spiritual is to be dutiful." No, to be spiritual is to be in Romance with God. The desire to be romanced lies deep in the heart of every women. It is for such that you were made. Are you ARE romanced, and ever will be.

There used to be a tradition of the loveable rogue who would steal from the honour boxes in churches and buy a round of drinks with the money he snagged. And everyone would find him tremendously good company. But not any more.

Being around a church culture, even leading a gathering of believers, I've gotten pretty good at predicting what's going to happen in a church service.

My mum was very glamorous, an incredible seamstress. She made up those Vogue, Givenchy and Yves St. Laurent patterns they used to sell. It was church couture, darling! Because my dad was a pastor, she could get away with more than other women. Her skirts were that bit tighter.

Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute?

What I thought as a young adult is you act like you have it together whether or not you do because that is what church people do. That is not what God has called us to do.

We know what hair smells like when a hot comb hits it. That's a cultural thing. We know what that smells like on Sunday mornings, usually church-related or something. In my house, it was getting ready for church and your sister was getting her hair fried.

History shows that when the church accommodates culture, it weakens it.

I am interested in Scripture and theology. This is an interest that I can assume I would share with a pastor, so that makes me a little bit prone to use that kind of character, perhaps, just at the moment. Then there is also the fact that, having been a church member for many years, I am very aware of how much pastors enrich people's experience, people for whom they are significant. I know that it's a kind of custom of American literature and culture to slang them. I don't think there is any reason why that needs to be persisted in.

Absolutely, although every congregation will say, you know, every worship leader will say it's vital. It's very important, but again these are, you know, these are different cultural styles.