Barbara Brown Taylor Quotes About Church

Quotes about: Church

• The problem is, many of the people in need of saving are in churches, and at least part of what they need saving from is the idea that God sees the world the same way they do.

  Barbara Brown Taylor

  Ideas, People, Church

  Barbara Brown Taylor (2009). “An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith”, p.6, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

• With so much effort being poured into church growth, so much press being given to the benefits of faith, and so much flexing of religious muscle in the public square, the poor in spirit have no one but Jesus to call them blessed anymore.

  Barbara Brown Taylor

  Religious, Jesus, Blessed

  FaceBook post by Barbara Brown Taylor from Jun 27, 2013

• Most of us like thinking we are God's only children...At least one of the purposes of church is to remind us that God has other children, easily as precious as we. Baptism and narcissism cancel each other out.

  Barbara Brown Taylor

  Children, Thinking, Baptism

• If churches saw their mission in the same way, there is no telling what might happen. What if people were invited to come tell what they already know of God instead of to learn what they are supposed to believe? What if they were blessed for what they are doing in the world instead of chastened for not doing more at church? What if church felt more like a way station than a destination? What if the church’s job were to move people out the door instead of trying to keep them in, by convincing them that God needed them more in the world than in the church?

  Barbara Brown Taylor

  Jobs, Believe, Moving

  Barbara Brown Taylor (2011). “Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith”, p.222, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

• It can be difficult to be an introvert in church, especially if you happen to be the pastor. Liking to be alone can be interpreted as a judgment on other people's company. Liking to be quiet can be construed as aloofness. There is so much emphasis on community in most congregations that anyone who does not participate risks being labeled a loner.

  Barbara Brown Taylor

  Past, People, Community

  Barbara Brown Taylor (2009). “An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith”, p.88, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

• The poets began drifting away from churches as the jurists grew louder and more insistent.

  Barbara Brown Taylor

  Church, Poet, Grew

  Barbara Brown Taylor (2011). “Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith”, p.111, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

• I went to the little church in the country after ten years in the city. And part of my dream was to sit on people's front porches with glasses of iced tea, and all that happened. I was able to send birthday cards to everyone in the parish and able to know everyone who was there on Sunday by name. And that was what I'd been looking for.

  Barbara Brown Taylor

  Dream, Country, Sunday

  Source: www.pbs.org

• The church grew, and I gained a reputation for preaching, and people came, and it was a wonderful community. But we had a building that seated 82 people, and with a congregation then approaching 400 we were up to four services on Sunday, and everyone was tired.

  Barbara Brown Taylor

  Tired, Sunday, People

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Church can be extremely boring. It can be very meaningful, it can be character forming, but can be have very little fizz in it.

  Barbara Brown Taylor

  Meaningful, Character, Church

  Source: www.pbs.org

• To be in the mainline is to have a history and not simply to be an amalgam, a community church of who knows what that came from who knows where.

  Barbara Brown Taylor

  Community, Church, Knows

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I'm in a mainline church, I'm very aware, especially as I move through community churches and new-start churches that are making real efforts not to associate themselves with traditional denominations - very often they have no history. They have no institutional memory.

  Barbara Brown Taylor

  Memories, Real, Moving

  Source: www.pbs.org

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