Rick Warren Quotes

I think the Catholic and Protestant churches have become very stagnant.

Christ is not knocking on the door of a sinner's heart, but on the door of a wayward church.

The future of the church is also about looking back and looking at where we see these wonderful renewals and what we can learn from the early church. I think it is a really exciting time where Phyllis Tickle said every few hundred years the church needs a rummage sale where we can get rid of some of the clutter.

I think it's super important for the church itself to rediscover the gospel.

I want to throw open the windows of the Church so that we can see out and the people can see in.

We shall never see much change for the better in our churches in general till the prayer meeting occupies a higher place in the esteem of Christians.

I look at tens of thousands of church leaders who still do need a bit of an awakening.

We must have a new reformation. There must come a violent break with that irresponsible, amusement-mad, paganized pseudo-religion which passes today for the faith of Christ and which is being spread all over the world by unspiritual men employing unscriptural methods to achieve their ends.

Now the Church is not wood and stone, but the company of believing people; one must hold to them, and see how they believe, live and teach.

Until we start thinking in terms of revolution instead of compromise the Church will continue to pat itself on the back with token steps of renewal.

The church is not here to meet our needs. We are the church here to meet the needs of the world.

I am no lover of pompous title, but only desire that my name may be recorded in a line or two, which shall briefly express my name, my virginity, the years of my reign, the reformation of religion under it, and my preservation of peace.

The church is always to be under the Word; she must be; we must keep her there. You must not assume that because the church started correctly, she will continue so. She did not do so in the New Testament times; she has not done so since. Without being constantly reformed by the Word the church becomes something very different.

...churchgoing is not synonymous with personal spirituality. There are some people who get so busy in church worship and projects that they become insensitive to the pressing human needs that sourround them, contradicting the very precepts they profess to believe deeply.

I still hope. I wouldn't be in this position if I didn't. I love the church. I love the Bible. But I think we're in a time where we're desperately in need of a great reformation.

I'm an elder in a Presbyterian church. I've taken Scripture seriously. I really do believe, like my more religious colleagues, that religion should be a source of values. If you believe that, for God's sake, act on those values.

It's just that the churches have been sleeping for a long time. A lot of people argue that the churches are even dead. I don't believe they're dead, but they've been sleeping, but they, I hope, will wake up, and that's one of my tasks is to make sure they wake up as much as they do before I die.

No matter how corrupt the Church may become, it carries within it the seeds of its own regeneration.

There are financial bankruptcies in many parts of the church. No question about that. But we see the possibility of reimagining and revitalizing the church.

If the church would only be the church- if Christians would only be Christians- nothing could halt our onward march.

Our most pressing obligation is to do all in our power to obtain a revival that will result in a reformed, revitalized, purified church. Each generation of Christians is the seed of the next, and degenerate seed is sure to produce a degenerate harvest.

... our reality teaches us that, as Christians, we must create a Church of the poor, that we don't need a Church imposed from outside which knows nothing of hunger.

I would love to see the Church on the right side of history.

It took many years to cleanse Arabia of its “false idols.” It will take many more to cleanse Islam of its new false idols-bigotry and fanaticism-worshipped by those who have replaced Muhammad's original vision of tolerance and unity with their own ideals of hatred and discord. But the cleansing is inevitable, and the tide of reform cannot be stopped. The Islamic Reformation is already here. We are all living in it.