Salvation has something to say not only to the individual man but also to the culture. Christianity is individual in the sense that each man must be born again, one at a time. But it is not individualistic. The distinction is important. As God made man, He also made an Eve so that there could be finite, horizontal relationships between two people. Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 86

When we reflect on the history of the Church, are we not bound to confess that she has failed to follow the example of her Founder? All too often she has worn the robes of the ruler, not the apron of the servant.

Prophets are almost extinct in the religious world today. The modern church is a "non-prophet" organization.

Before Christ sent the church into the world he sent the Spirit into the church. The same order must be observed today.

If the first mark of a true and living church is love, the second is suffering. The one is naturally consequent on the other. A willingness to suffer proves the genuineness of love. What Christ Thinks of the Church: An Exposition of Revelation 1 - 3 (Grand Rapids, Baker: 2003) 35

The Church which is married to the Spirit of its Age will be a widow in the next.

Church members too often expect service and never think of giving it.

A church membership does not make a Christian any more than owning a piano makes a musician.

Cain will go on murdering Abel, so long as the church is on the earth.

The followers of Jesus are to be different - different from both the nominal church and the secular world, different from both the religious and the irreligious. The Sermon on the Mount is the most complete delineation anywhere in the New Testament of the Christian value-system, ethical standard, religious devotion, attitude to money, ambition, life-style and network of relationships - all of which are totally at variance with those of the non-Christian world. And this Christian Counterculture is the life of the kingdom of God, a fully human life indeed but lived out under the divine rule.

Institutions are designed to equip individuals to walk with God. They are a means to an end. But often the institution becomes more important than the individual, and the individual begins serving the institution.

My religion is merely Christian...The rule of my faith and doctrine is ye law of God in Nature and Scripture. The Church which I am a member of is the Universality of Christians, in conjunction with all particular Churches of Christians in England or elsewhere in the world, whose Communion according to my capacity I desire...

The highest expression of the will of God in this age is the church which He purchased with His own blood. To be scripturally valid any religious activity must be part of the church. Let it be clearly stated that there can be no service acceptable to God in this age that does not center in and spring out of the church. Bible schools, tract societies, Christian busuness men's committees, seminaries and the many independent groups working at one or another phase of religion need to check themselves reverently and courageously, for they have no true spiritual significance ouside of or apart from the church.

If we preach the whole counsel of God, we shall be accused of extremism, not only by the world but also by a professing church that cannot endure sound doctrine.

The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church

He that is not a son of Peace is not a son of God. All other sins destroy the Church consequentially; but Division and Separation demolish it directly...

The most useful members of a church are usually those who would be doing harm if they were not doing good.

Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshippers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become "unity" conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified.

The Christian church is not a congregation of righteous people. It is a society of those who know they are not good.

The titles given to the Church in Scripture bespeak heavenly unity, such as the body, the vine, the temple of God, a holy nation, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood. Such words set forth the Church of God as a witness for Him in the world; but the names which have been invented by men are names of sects, and declare our shame.

What matters in the church is not religion but the form of Christ, and its taking form amidst a band of men.

...in a post-Christian world and in an often post-Christian church it is imperative to point out with love where apostasy lies. We must openly discuss with all who will listen, treating all men as fellow men, but we must call apostasy, apostasy. If we do not do that, we are not ready for reformation, revival, and a revolutionary church in the power of the Holy Spirit. We are all too easily infiltrated with relativism and synthesis in our own day. We tend to lack antithesis. Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 39

he chief danger of the Church today is that it is trying to get on the same side as the world, instead of turning the world upside down. Our Master expects us to accomplish results, even if they bring opposition and conflict. Anything is better than compromise, apathy, and paralysis. God, give to us an intense cry for the old-time power of the Gospel and the Holy Ghost!

What in many ways proved the menace which was most nearly disastrous was that presented by the kind of power on which the Roman Empire was founded, a kind of power, as we have seen, which was in complete contradiction to that seen in the cross. From the very beginning, pride of place and the desire for control in the Christian community were chronic temptations.

We are like a roomful of lamps all brilliantly lighted and trying to outdazzle each other on Sunday. We enjoy our own company so much that we become members of an exclusive club, instead of missionaries.

So remember, you who profess to be followers of the Lord Jesus, that to you indifference is impossible! You must bless the church and the world by your holiness, or you will curse them both by your hypocrisy and inconsistency. In the visible church it is most true that "no man liveth unto himself, and no man dieth unto himself."

The holiest moment of the church service is the moment when God's people -- strengthened by preaching and sacrament -- go out of the church door into the world to be the church. We don't go to church, we are the church.

There are many sheep without, many wolves within.

The temple of truth has never suffered so much from woodpeckers on the outside as from termites within.

It may take a crucified church to bring a crucified Christ before the eyes of the world.

The communion of the saints means, not a series of loosely related cliques, but an all-embracing and self-abnegating fellowship.

All the church is to be made up of tellers. Not everyone is to be a missionary, not everyone a minister, but there is no Christian that's really become a Christian who doesn't have laid upon him the admonition of Paul to be a debtor. Everyone is bound to be a teller in his own place, in his own calling, according to the individual vocation which God has given him. Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 122

One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do no constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team.Ê The first requisite is life, always.

The thermometer of a church is its prayer meeting.

The church with no great anguish on its heart has no great music on its lips.

The real unity of the church must not be organized, but exercised.

There are many in the Church as well as out of it who need to learn that Christianity is neither creed nor a ceremonial, but a life vitaly connected with a loving Christ.

Burned but not consumed.

We are trying to play without the ball when the church tries to evangelize before she has repented. The church can do many things after she has repented but nothing until she first repents.

The spirit of God first imparts love; he next inspires hope, and then gives liberty; and that is about the last thing we have in many of our churches.

To reform the Church of God we should always begin with self-reform. Schisms and divisions will increase so long as we begin with reforming others.

Many a church thinks it needs a new pastor when it needs the same pastor renewed.

The Bible knows nothing of solitary religion.

If we fight the Lord's battles merely by duplicating the way the world does its work, we are like little boys playing with wooden swords pretending they are in the battle while their big brothers are away in some distant bloody land. Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 142