“In no other arena is the church at greater risk of losing its calling than in the public square.”

“As I look around on Sunday morning at the people populating the pews, I see the risk that God has assumed. For whatever reason, God now reveals himself in the world not through a pillar of smoke and fire, not even through the physical body of his Son in Galilee, but through the mongrel collection that comprises my local church and every other such gathering in God’s name. (p. 68, Church: Why Bother?)”

“Family is the one human institution we have no choice over. We get in simply by being born, and as a result we are involuntarily thrown together with a menagerie of strange and unlike people. Church calls for another step: to voluntarily choose to band together with a strange menagerie because of a common bond in Jesus Christ. I have found that such a community more resembles a family than any other human institution. Henri Nouwen once defined a community as “a place where the person you least want to live with always lives.” His definition applies equally to the group that gathers each Thanksgiving and the group that congregates each Sunday morning. (p. 64-65, Church: Why Bother?)”

“We admit that we will never reach our ideal in this life, a distinctive the church claims that most other human institutions try to deny.”

“A clear pattern soon emerged, as demonstrated by many polls: the more prominently Christians entered the political arena, the more negatively they were viewed by the rest of society.”

“I go to church as an expression of my need for God and for God's family.”

“Christians get very angry toward other Christians who sin differently than they do.”