To live [in the church] at the beck and call of marketing logic is to live in slavery.

If the church is the body of Christ [who was disguised in servant form], why would we think the world would be able to pick us out of a crowd of other well-meaning organizations?

The wealthy, Jesus says, can only get into heaven through the eye of a needle; the same applies to churches wealthy in numbers and programs.

I sometimes wonder if God calls us into the church because it represents not the people of God at their best but us at our worst. I wonder if he calls us to become embedded in this wretched institution precisely because it is wretched. And calls us to be a part of it not to reform it or save it or control it in any way, but to simply love it.

For his own unfathomable reasons, God chooses to disguise himself when he comes to this planet, and there have been few disguises better than the church.

I sometimes wonder whether our churches--living as we do in American death-denying culture, relentlessly smiling through our praise choruses--are inadvertently helping people live not as much in hope as in denial.