Philip Yancey - Church Quotes

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I rejected the church for a time because I found so little grace there. I returned because I found grace nowhere else.

Philip Yancey
In no other arena is the church at greater risk of losing its calling than in the public square

Philip Yancey
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.

Philip Yancey
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.

Philip Yancey
We in the church have humility and contrition to offer the world, not a formula for success. Almost alone in our success-oriented society, we admit that we have failed, are failing, and always will fail.

Philip Yancey
The church is, above all, a place to receive grace: it brings forgiven people together with the aim of equipping us to dispense grace to others.

Philip Yancey
C. S. Lewis observed that almost all crimes of Christian history have come about when religion is confused with politics. Politics, which always runs by the rules of ungrace, allures us to trade away grace for power, a temptation the church has often been unable to resist.

Philip Yancey
Jesus gave us a model for the work of the church at the Last Supper. While his disciples kept proposing more organization - Hey, let's elect officers, establish hierarchy, set standards of professionalism - Jesus quietly picked up a towel and basin of water and began to wash their feet.

Philip Yancey
All too often the church holds up a mirror
reflecting back the society around it, rather than a window revealing a
different way.

Philip Yancey
What would a church look like that created space for quietness, that bucked the celebrity trend and unplugged from noisy media, that actively resisted our consumer culture? What would worship look like if we directed it more toward God than toward our own amusement?

Philip Yancey
[...]women much like this prostitute fled toward Jesus, not away from him. The worse a person felt about herself, the more likely she saw Jesus as a refuge. Has the church lost that gift?

Philip Yancey
Our best efforts at changing society will fall short unless the church can teach the world how to love.

Philip Yancey
Christ bears the wounds of the church, his body, just as he bore the wounds of crucifixion. I sometimes wonder which have hurt worse.

Philip Yancey