Fewer and fewer people are attracted to the church service and more and more people are attracted to the service of the church.
Worship is not a twenty minute period during a church service, but a lifestyle of relating to God in a particular way.
When we decided to marry, we had two ceremonies - one was more bureaucratic for the sake of the Swiss authorities,then a church service in Florence, and I wrote the music for the church service. The challenge in that was that Iman's [Abdulmajid] family are Muslim and mine are Protestant. I had to be careful about the prayers that we chose and the music I wrote because I didn't want to offend either side.
I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.
If you are called upon to play a church service, it is a greater honor than if you were to play a concert on the finest organ in the world. . . Thank God each time when you are privileged to sit before the organ console and assist in the worship of the Almighty.
Too many church services start at eleven sharp and end at twelve dull.
. . . the Bible itself is less read than preached, less interpreted than brandished. Increasingly, pastors may drape a limply bound Book over the edges of the pulpit as they depart from it. Members of the congregation carry Bibles to church services; the paster announces a long passage text for his sermon and waits for people to find it, then reads only the first verse of it before he takes off. The Book has become a talisman.
Abraham Lincoln was asked by an aide about the church service he had attended. Lincoln responded that the minister was inspired, interesting, well-prepared, eloquent and the topic relevant. The aide said, “Then it was a good service?” Lincoln responded, “No. ” The aide protested, “But, Mr. President, you said that the minister was inspired, interesting, well-prepared, eloquent, and that the topic was relevant. ” “Yes,” replied Lincoln, “but he didn’t challenge us to do any great thing.
I do not like a high-organized church. I think that as soon as the congregation reaches a level of one hundred or so people, it is time to build a new church. As soon as the congregation gets to the point where you are not on fairly intimate terms with every other person in that church, then you have become a theater where people can attend services. I do not think you can attend a church service. Service is not something which is there to be viewed as if it were a play or a movie.
If you leave the church service thinking about how good the pastor was, he has missed the mark. If you leave consumed with Christ, the pastor has been used by the Lord.
I think one of the things the church service means is hope.
The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of. Our attention would have been on God.
As calls come to us for church service by the Lord's representatives, it is natural for us to wonder why we have been selected. The Lord has made it plain that every individual has been blessed and endowed with certain gifts and talents. And while there are many gifts, yet 'To some is given one, and to some is given another, that all may be profited thereby. ' (D&C 46:12)
Love never ends or fails. Love never ends. Everything must be based on love - the relation between two friends, my ministry, my service; the church services in every field must be based on love. Why? Because God is Love.
You don't have to be in church service to worship, you can be in your own home. You enhance your spirituality, through the instrument of worship, when you really connect with the invisible, almighty God.
the music was always in the background, like music at a church service; it was something to depend upon.
I still love church. My favorite church service is T. D. Jakes at the Potter's House. I don't think there is a better preacher in the country. His ability to interpret scripture is like no other.
Sunday morning church service is not an enormous priority; spending time with other believers is.
Homosexuals want to come into churches and disrupt church services and throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the face of ministers.
We spend more time at cinemas, theaters, art galleries and theme parks than we do at churches, and they have become our new cathedrals. We can spend hours at any of these places of entertainment but if church service goes on too long we get impatient.
