Preaching To The Choir Quotes

Go to church to learn about forgiveness; come back to become a forgiver! Go to church and learn about kindness; come back to become a kind person! If things go like that, you will be a true image of Christ after going to church only 10 times on 10 Sundays!

You are singing to the preacher," said J.Lo. "Preaching to the choir," I corrected him. "Yes. This thing.

Still, I carried tremendous anger about the massacre and about how Deborah had been taken from me. Our choir group preached forgiveness, but I did not forgive. I could not let my anger go. I thought that the burning pain in my chest was Deborah, and I needed to hold onto that pain in order to hold onto Deborah.

I always knew I'd be preaching to the choir. Slap the title 'Dumpty' on a book of political humor, and your bias is glaringly obvious. From the beginning, I've intended these verses for people who oppose our current President, hoping to briefly yank them out of their chronic depression at his persistent grip on executive power.

If the chanting in temple would help inner peace, if the preaching in a mosque would address humanity and the choirs in a church would sing songs of universal love, I am not against religions!

Disillusioned words like bullets bark As human gods aim for their marks Made everything from toy guns that sparks To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark It's easy to see without looking too far That not much Is really sacred. While preachers preach of evil fates Teachers teach that knowledge waits Can lead to hundred-dollar plates Goodness hides behind its gates But even the President of the United States Sometimes must have To stand naked. An' though the rules of the road have been lodged It's only people's games that you got to dodge And it's alright, Ma, I can make it. Advertising signs that con you Into thinking you're the one That can do what's never been done That can win what's never been won Meantime life outside goes on All around you. Although the masters make the rules For the wise men and the fools I got nothing, Ma, to live up to. For them that must obey authority That they do not respect in any degree Who despite their jobs, their destinies Speak jealously of them that are free Cultivate their flowers to be Nothing more than something They invest in. While some on principles baptized To strict party platforms ties Social clubs in drag disguise Outsiders they can freely criticize Tell nothing except who to idolize And then say God Bless him. While one who sings with his tongue on fire Gargles in the rat race choir Bent out of shape from society's pliers Cares not to come up any higher But rather get you down in the hole That he's in. Old lady judges, watch people in pairs Limited in sex, they dare To push fake morals, insult and stare While money doesn't talk, it swears Obscenity, who really cares Propaganda, all is phony. While them that defend what they cannot see With a killer's pride, security It blows the minds most bitterly For them that think death's honesty Won't fall upon them naturally Life sometimes Must get lonely. And if my thought-dreams could been seen They'd probably put my head in a guillotine But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.

We all have a choir to preach to; people who will receive and believe immediately, and people who will spread the word. However, those of us who are messengers want to reach those in need of a change of heart and mind. We need the choir to grow.

…95 percent of political commentary, whether spoken or written, is now polluted by the very politics it’s supposed to be about. Meaning it’s become totally ideological and reductive: The writer/speaker has certain political convictions or affiliations, and proceeds to filter all reality and spin all assertion according to those convictions and loyalties. Everybody’s pissed off and exasperated and impervious to argument from any other side. Opposing viewpoints are not just incorrect but contemptible, corrupt, evil […] Political discourse is now a formulaic matter of preaching to one’s own choir and demonizing the opposition. Everything’s relentlessly black-and-whitened…. Since the truth is way, way more gray and complicated than any one ideology can capture, the whole thing seems to me not just stupid but stupefying… How can any of this possibly help me, the average citizen, deliberate about whom to choose to decide my country’s macroeconomic policy, or how even to conceive for myself what that policy’s outlines should be, or how to minimize the chances of North Korea nuking the DMZ and pulling us into a ghastly foreign war, or how to balance domestic security concerns with civil liberties? Questions like these are all massively complicated, and much of the complication is not sexy, and well over 90 percent of political commentary now simply abets the uncomplicatedly sexy delusion that one side is Right and Just and the other Wrong and Dangerous. Which is of course a pleasant delusion, in a way—as is the belief that every last person you’re in conflict with is an asshole—but it’s childish, and totally unconducive to hard thought, give and take, compromise, or the ability of grown-ups to function as any kind of community.

In their book Radical Reconciliation, Curtiss DeYoung and Allan Boesak unpack why this happens. They write, "reconciliation is revolutionary, that is, oriented to structural change." Which means, reconciliation can never be apolitical. Reconciliation chooses sides, and the side is always justice. This is why white American churches remain so far from experiencing anything resembling reconciliation. The white Church considers power its birthright rather than its curse. And so, rather than seeking reconciliation, they stage moments of racial harmony that don't challenge the status quo. They organize worship services where the choirs of two racially different churches sing together, where a pastor of a different race preaches a couple of times a year, where they celebrate MLK but don't acknowledge current racial injustices. Acts like these can create beautiful moments of harmony and goodwill, but since they don't change the underlying power structure at the organization, it would be misleading to call them acts of reconciliation. Even worse, when they're not paired with greater change, diversity efforts can have the opposite of their intended effect. They keep the church feeling good, innocent, maybe even progressive, all the while preserving the roots of injustice.

They organize worship services where the choirs of two racially different churches sing together, where a pastor of a different race preaches a couple times a year, where they celebrate MLK but don’t acknowledge current racial injustices. Acts like these can create beautiful moments of harmony and goodwill, but since they don’t change the underlying power structure at the organization, it would be misleading to call them acts of reconciliation. Even worse, when they’re not paired with greater change, diversity efforts can have the opposite of their intended effect. They keep the church feeling good, innocent, maybe even progressive, all the while preserving the roots of injustice.

She felt safe for a while and derived solace from the reflection that there would always be church. If she were a governess all her life there would be church. There was a little sting of guilt in the thought. It would be practising deception.... To despise it all, to hate the minister and the choir and the congregation and yet to come—running—she could imagine herself all her life running, at least in her mind, weekly to some church—working her fingers into their gloves and pretending to take everything for granted and to be just like everybody else and really thinking only of getting into a quiet pew and ceasing to pretend. It was wrong to use church like that. She was wrong—all wrong. It couldn't be helped. Who was there who could help her? She imagined herself going to a clergyman and saying she was bad and wanted to be good—even crying. He would be kind and would pray and smile—and she would be told to listen to sermons in the right spirit. She could never do that.... There she felt she was on solid ground. Listening to sermons was wrong... people ought to refuse to be preached at by these men. Trying to listen to them made her more furious than anything she could think of, more base in submitting... those men's sermons were worse than women's smiles... just as insincere at any rate... and you could get away from the smiles, make it plain you did not agree and that things were not simple and settled... but you could not stop a sermon. It was so unfair. The service might be lovely, if you did not listen to the words; and then the man got up and went on and on from unsound premises until your brain was sick... droning on and on and getting more and more pleased with himself and emphatic... and nothing behind it. As often as not you could pick out the logical fallacy if you took the trouble.... Preachers knew no more than anyone else... you could see by their faces... sheeps' faces.... What a terrible life... and wives and children in the homes taking them for granted....

But won’t political involvement distract us from the main task of preaching the Gospel? At this point someone may object that while political involvement may have some benefits and may do some good, it can so easily distract us, turn unbelievers away from the church, and cause us to neglect the main task of pointing people toward personal trust in Christ. John MacArthur writes, “When the church takes a stance that emphasizes political activism and social moralizing, it always diverts energy and resources away from evangelization.”83 Yet the proper question is not, “Does political influence take resources away from evangelism?” but, “Is political influence something God has called us to do?” If God has called some of us to some political influence, then those resources would not be blessed if we diverted them to evangelism—or to the choir, or to teaching Sunday School to children, or to any other use. In this matter, as in everything else the church does, it would be healthy for Christians to realize that God may call individual Christians to different emphases in their lives. This is because God has placed in the church “varieties of gifts” (1 Cor. 12:4) and the church is an entity that has “many members” but is still “one body” (v. 12). Therefore God might call someone to devote almost all of his or her time to the choir, someone else to youth work, someone else to evangelism, someone else to preparing refreshments to welcome visitors, and someone else to work with lighting and sound systems. “But if Jim places all his attention on the sound system, won’t that distract the church from the main task of preaching the Gospel?” No, not at all. That is not what God has called Jim to emphasize (though he will certainly share the Gospel with others as he has opportunity). Jim’s exclusive focus on the church’s sound system means he is just being a faithful steward in the responsibility God has given him. In the same way, I think it is entirely possible that God called Billy Graham to emphasize evangelism and say nothing about politics and also called James Dobson to emphasize a radio ministry to families and to influencing the political world for good. Aren’t there enough Christians in the world for us to focus on more than one task? And does God not call us to thousands of different emphases, all in obedience to him? But the whole ministry of the church will include both emphases. And the teaching ministry from the pulpit should do nothing less than proclaim “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). It should teach, over the course of time, on all areas of life and all areas of Bible knowledge. That certainly must include, to some extent, what the Bible says about the purposes of civil government and how that teaching should apply to our situations today. This means that in a healthy church we will find that some people emphasize influencing the government and politics, others emphasize influencing the business world, others emphasize influencing the educational system, others entertainment and the media, others marriage and the family, and so forth. When that happens, it seems to me that we should encourage, not discourage, one another. We should adopt the attitude toward each other that Paul encouraged in the church at Rome: Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God…. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother (Rom. 14:10–13). For several different reasons, then, I think the view that says the church should just “do evangelism, not politics” is incorrect.

By the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and of the holy canons, and of the undefiled Virgin Mary, mother and patroness of our Saviour, and of all the celestial virtues, angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, powers, cherubins and seraphins, and of all the holy patriarchs, prophets, and of all the apostles and evangelists, and of the holy innocents, who in the sight of the Holy Lamb, are found worthy to sing the new song of the holy martyrs and holy confessors, and of the holy virgins, and of all the saints together, with the holy and elect of God, may he be damn'd. We excommunicate, and anathematize him, and from the thresholds of the holy church of God Almighty we sequester him, that he may be tormented, disposed, and delivered over with Dathan and Abiram, and with those who say unto the Lord God, Depart from us, we desire none of thy ways. And as fire is quenched with water, so let the light of him be put out for evermore, unless it shall repent him' and make satisfaction. Amen. May the Father who created man, curse him. May the Son who suffered for us curse him. May the Holy Ghost, who was given to us in baptism, curse him May the holy cross which Christ, for our salvation triumphing over his enemies, ascended, curse him. May the holy and eternal Virgin Mary, mother of God, curse him. May St. Michael, the advocate of holy souls, curse him. May all the angels and archangels, principalities and powers, and all the heavenly armies, curse him. [Our armies swore terribly in Flanders, cried my uncle Toby,---but nothing to this.---For my own part I could not have a heart to curse my dog so.] May St. John the Pre-cursor, and St. John the Baptist, and St. Peter and St. Paul, and St. Andrew, and all other Christ's apostles, together curse him. And may the rest of his disciples and four evangelists, who by their preaching converted the universal world, and may the holy and wonderful company of martyrs and confessors who by their holy works are found pleasing to God Almighty, curse him. May the holy choir of the holy virgins, who for the honor of Christ have despised the things of the world, damn him May all the saints, who from the beginning of the world to everlasting ages are found to be beloved of God, damn him May the heavens and earth, and all the holy things remaining therein, damn him. May he be damn'd wherever he be---whether in the house or the stables, the garden or the field, or the highway, or in the path, or in the wood, or in the water, or in the church. May he be cursed in living, in dying. May he be cursed in eating and drinking, in being hungry, in being thirsty, in fasting, in sleeping, in slumbering, in walking, in standing, in sitting, in lying, in working, in resting, in pissing, in shitting, and in blood-letting! May he be cursed in all the faculties of his body! May he be cursed inwardly and outwardly! May he be cursed in the hair of his head! May he be cursed in his brains, and in his vertex, in his temples, in his forehead, in his ears, in his eye-brows, in his cheeks, in his jaw-bones, in his nostrils, in his fore-teeth and grinders, in his lips, in his throat, in his shoulders, in his wrists, in his arms, in his hands, in his fingers! May he be damn'd in his mouth, in his breast, in his heart and purtenance, down to the very stomach! May he be cursed in his reins, and in his groin, in his thighs, in his genitals, and in his hips, and in his knees, his legs, and feet, and toe-nails! May he be cursed in all the joints and articulations of the members, from the top of his head to the sole of his foot! May there be no soundness in him! May the son of the living God, with all the glory of his Majesty and may heaven, with all the powers which move therein, rise up against him, curse and damn him, unless he repent and make satisfaction! Amen. I declare, quoth my uncle Toby, my heart would not let me curse the devil himself with so much bitterness!

I'd been told that Catholic masses were stable and cold with dull organ music so I was surprised when the choir broke into song. They sang in Shona, with African drums and rattles, ngoma ne bosho. The women;s voices merged with men's bass producing an effect that was confusing but beautiful. At Forward with Faith Ministries we only used guitars, western drums and a keyboard, because Pastor Mavumba preached against using African Traditional instruments. He said that before the missionaries came, our people engaged in devil worship, so the instruments they used were the devil's instruments. We sang in English and he preached in English too, when he was not speaking in tongues. I was a bit confused; maybe the Catholic Church was the devil's church after all, but I couldn't stop my foot from tapping along to the music. [88]

The self-righteously bitter cartoons that appear in sectarian magazines are fine if all you want to do is preach to the choir, but I believe you can reach a lot more people with humor. (from an interview in Attitude, 2002)

Reconciliation is not a magic word that we can trot out whenever we need healing or inspiration. Deep down, I think we know this is true, because our efforts to partake of an easy reconciliation have proved fruitless in the world. Too often, our discussions of race are emotional but not strategic, our outreach work remains paternalistic, and our ethnic celebrations fetishize people of color. Many champions of racial justice in the Church has stopped using the term altogether, because it has been so watered down from its original potency. In their book Radical Reconciliation, Curtiss DeYoung and Allan Boesak unpack why this happens. They write, "reconciliation is revolutionary, that is, oriented to structural change." Which means, reconciliation can never be apolitical. Reconciliation chooses sides, and the side is always justice. This is why white American churches remain so far from experiencing anything resembling reconciliation. The white Church considers power its birthright rather than its curse. And so, rather than seeking reconciliation, they stage moments of racial harmony that don't challenge the status quo. They organize worship services where the choir of two racially different churches sing together, where a pastor of a different race preaches a couple times a year, where they celebrate MLK but don't acknowledge current racial injustices. Acts like these can create beautiful moments of harmony and goodwill, but since they don't change the underlying power structure of the organization, it would be misleading to call them acts of reconciliation. Even worse, when they're not paired with greater change, diversity efforts can have the opposite of their intended effect. They keep the church feeling good, innocent, maybe even progressive, allt he while preserving the roots of injustice.

If you’re reading this book and chapter, you are probably in what we call the 10%er mindset or those in law enforcement that are continually improving them both physically and mentally.  This chapter is preaching to the choir, but as members of this proverbial choir your voices need to be heard.  You need to sing out loudly to those who are not so concerned about improving themselves as they are jeopardizing your life, the lives in the communities you serve, and the tranquility in a free society that is being torn apart by those that would destroy us.  Police officers are the fine blue line between chaos and order. You are our first line of defense. Today’s law enforcement officer can no longer be what has been referred to as a “ROD”.  That is “Retired on Duty.”  Those who look at law enforcement as just a paycheck and a career leading to a secure retirement need to be not only shaken, but steered either out of their departments or quickly change their attitude about what it means to be a cop.

Concerned about attitudes toward worship and practices in worship in the churches of his time, Søren Kierkegaard, a nineteenth-century Danish philosopher/theologian, compared what was taking place in the theater and what was happening in Christian worship. In a theater, actors, prompted by people offstage, perform for their audiences. To his dismay, Kierkegaard found that this theatrical model dominated the worship practices of many churches. A minister was viewed as the on-stage actor, God as the offstage prompter, and the congregation as the audience. Unfortunately, that understanding of worship remains as prevalent as it is wrong. Each ingredient of the theatrical model mentioned by Kierkegaard is an essential component in Christian worship. Crucial, though, is a proper identification of the role of each one. In authentic worship, the actor is, in fact, many actors and actresses—the members of the congregation. The prompter is the minister, if singular, or, if plural, all of the people who lead in worship (choir members, instrumentalists, soloists, readers, prayers, preachers). The audience is God. Always, without exception, the audience is God! If God is not the audience in any given service, Christian worship does not take place. If worship does occur and God is not the audience, all present participate in the sin of idolatry.3

Thinking of Chase, Katie pulled out her phone and let out a rather large gasp, His text read: I'm watching this hot girl with purple hair walk into a sex shop. I told you I would take care of you. ;-) Becca hung up the clothes in the changing room and said, "Well, either someone sent you Smurf porn or it just got really hot in here." Katie's cheeks flushed darker. "Neither, just…men are stupid." Becca closed the door on her and said, "Preaching to the choir, baby. Preaching to the freaking choir."" -Katie & Becca

Fundamentalists of all stripes love a bully pulpit but hate a roundtable. Why share power when you are right and everyone else is wrong? Who needs dialogue when your monologue is sacrosanct? Why let false prophets into the room when you can bolt the door and preach to the choir?

Why This Book I HAVE WRITTEN THIS BOOK because I am convinced that there is a way to end most evil.* And ending evil is the most important task humans can ever undertake. The only proven way to achieve this on any large scale is the American value system. These values are proclaimed on every American coin: “Liberty,” “In God We Trust,” “E Pluribus Unum.” Each one is explained at length, and each one is adaptable to just about any society in the world. I have written this book with a number of audiences in mind: It is written first for Americans who already affirm American values. To those who would argue that this is an unnecessary exercise in “preaching to the choir,” I would say that, unfortunately, this is not the case. Most of the choir have forgotten the melody. Few Americans can articulate what is distinctive about American values, or even what they are. There is, in fact, a thirst among Americans for rediscovering and reaffirming American values. I know this from my daily radio show, and I know this from a personal experience. A few years ago, at a public forum at the University of Denver, I was asked by the moderator, former Colorado senator Bill Armstrong, what I thought the greatest problem confronting America was. I answered that it was that the last two generations of Americans have not communicated what it means to be American to their children. Someone in the audience videotaped my response and put it on YouTube, where millions of people have seen it. A lot of Americans realize we have forgotten what we stand for.

How long you guys been renovating?” Craig asked Arianna. “About a month.” “How much longer?” Arianna sighed. “The contractor messed up the counters, so who knows.” “Preaching to the choir.” “Yeah?” “Oh, yeah. But in the end everything turned out for the best.” “How so?” “Well, for one, I switched from laminate to granite.” “Granite . . .” She exhaled, confounded, as if the granite countertop quandary was the most perplexing philosophical question of all time. “Yeah . . .We’re torn.” “More expensive, but aesthetically superior,” Craig lobbied. “Also retains value longer.” Knowing the sexual perversity about to transpire, I couldn’t reconcile that I was suddenly in an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Granted, I didn’t know from normal pre–group sex discussion topics, but I was pretty sure home improvement wasn’t on the list.

You're preaching to the choir.

In connection with the Welsh revival there is no preaching, no order, no hymnbooks, no choirs, no organs, no collections, and, finally, no advertising.

Boycotts have served as a form of discursive enfranchisement and political empowerment that queer Palestinians have, in many ways, used to globally reclaim their voices from the Israeli state and its satellite institutions and their formidable resources. In turn, boycotts have become a primary form of transnational queer Palestinian solidarity activism. Augmenting them with openness to differences in ideology and strategy is critical for movement growth. Radical purism has created conditions in which activists often wind up just preaching to the choir. Avoiding this trap requires a commitment to deep listening, the formulation of means that mirror the ends we seek, a generosity of spirit, and a fierce kindness toward ourselves and others. Such steadfastness is essential, even in the face of cruelty, if the movement is to achieve peace and justice.

It is not coincidence ... that religious extremism in US politics has been on the rise as the proportion of churchgoing Americans has dropped... When it comes to politics, then, preaching to the choir can and does pay off--as long as the choir is the right size, not too big and not too small. American churchgoers get the attention of politicians, the Glaeser study suggests, because at this particular moment in time, we are sized just right to be useful to them.

It is this people, then, the priestly people, the body of Christ and the community of Christ, who are the ‘subject’ of liturgical celebrations. In other words, it is they who celebrate the liturgy, and the form of the liturgy must be of such sort as to make this possible. The Christian liturgy by its nature cannot be the monologue of a single participant. It is the action of a whole community. On the other hand, it is not an unstructured community. Each member, and indeed each group of members (e.g. the choir), has its role to fulfil and all by these funcitons are exercising the priesthood that they share with Christ and Chruches, an indispensable part of this structure is the priesthood, which is a ministry...of the priesthood of Christ and is in no way opposed to the priesthood of the people but is complementary to it. There is but one priesthood, that of Christ, which the whole Church exists to seve and make actual in the here and now. In the liturgical assembly the ministers of Christ have a special role of leading, of presiding, of preaching of uniting all in self-offering with Christ. For their part, the people not only act and offer through the priest-celebrant, they act and offer with him. By virtue of their baptism, they share in the priesthood of Christ and...they have their various roles to perform.

Good looking and a good tipper. That, my friend, is a mythical feat when it comes to men.” This chick was preaching to the Bowen Michaels Tabernacle Choir.

For years, I assumed that educating people who are already interested in climate change would just be preaching to the choir. But my reporting career has taught me that's note true. Most people who are interested in climate change just don't yet have the tools to talk about it confidently. The choir is there. They want to sing. But they don't know the words. (Emily Atkin, Truth Be Told)

The white Church considers power its birthright rather than its curse. And so, rather than seeking reconciliation, they stage moments of racial harmony that don’t challenge the status quo. They organize worship services where the choirs of two racially different churches sing together, where a pastor of a different race preaches a couple times a year, where they celebrate MLK but don’t acknowledge current racial injustices. Acts like these can create beautiful moments of harmony and goodwill, but since they don’t change the underlying power structure at the organization, it would be misleading to call them acts of reconciliation. Even worse, when they’re not paired with greater change, diversity efforts can have the opposite of their intended effect. They keep the church feeling good, innocent, maybe even progressive, all the while preserving the roots of injustice.

Etymologically, paroikia (a compound word from para and oikos) literally means “next to” or “alongside of the house” and, in a technical sense, meant a group of resident aliens. This sense of “parish” carried a theological context into the life of the Early Church and meant a “Christian society of strangers or aliens whose true state or citizenship is in heaven.” So whether one’s flock consists of fifty people in a church which can financially sustain a priest or if it is merely a few people in a living room whose priest must find secular employment, it is a parish. This original meaning of parish also implies the kind of evangelism that accompanies the call of a true parish priest. A parish is a geographical distinction rather than a member-oriented distinction. A priest’s duties do not pertain only to the people who fill the pews of his church on a Sunday morning. He is a priest to everyone who fills the houses in the “cure” where God as placed him. This ministry might not look like choir rehearsals, rector’s meetings, midweek “extreme” youth nights, or Saturday weddings. Instead, it looks like helping a battered wife find shelter from her abusive husband, discretely paying a poor neighbor’s heating oil bill when their tank runs empty in the middle of a bitter snow storm, providing an extra set of hands to a farmer who needs to get all of his freshly-baled hay in the barn before it rains that night, taking food from his own pantry or freezer to help feed a neighbor’s family, or offering his home for emergency foster care. This kind of “parochial” ministry was best modeled by the old Russian staretzi (holy men) who found every opportunity to incarnate the hands and feet of Christ to the communities where they lived. Perhaps Geoffrey Chaucer caught a glimpse of the true nature of parish life through his introduction of the “Parson” in the Prologue of The Canterbury Tales. Note how the issues of sacrifice, humility, and community mentioned above characterize this Parson’s cure even when opportunities were available for “greater” things: "There was a good man of religion, a poor Parson, but rich in holy thought and deed. He was also a learned man, a clerk, and would faithfully preach Christ’s gospel and devoutly instruct his parishioners. He was benign, wonderfully diligent, and patient in adversity, as he was often tested. He was loath to excommunicate for unpaid tithes, but rather would give to his poor parishioners out of the church alms and also of his own substance; in little he found sufficiency. His parish was wide and the houses far apart, but not even for thunder or rain did he neglect to visit the farthest, great or small, in sickness or misfortune, going on foot, a staff in his hand… He would not farm out his benefice, nor leave his sheep stuck fast in the mire, while he ran to London to St. Paul’s, to get an easy appointment as a chantry-priest, or to be retained by some guild, but dwelled at home and guarded his fold well, so that the wolf would not make it miscarry… There was nowhere a better priest than he. He looked for no pomp and reverence, nor yet was his conscience too particular; but the teaching of Christ and his apostles he taught, and first he followed it himself." As we can see, the distinction between the work of worship and the work of ministry becomes clear. We worship God via the Eucharist. We serve God via our ministry to others. Large congregations make it possible for clergy and congregation to worship anonymously (even with strangers) while often omitting ministry altogether. No wonder Satan wants to discredit house churches and make them “odd things”! Thus, while the actual house church may only boast a membership in the single digits, the house church parish is much larger—perhaps into the hundreds as is the case with my own—and the overall ministry is more like that of Christ’s own—feeding, healing, forgiving, engaging in all the cycles of community life, whether the people attend

Maybe instead of being the exception to the rule, what Heaven’s Gate really proves is that different techniques work on different people,” Darger said. “Co-opting an existing group works for a guy like Ham or Jim Jones, because they’re kind of preaching to the choir, so to speak. They’ve already got a group of believers. On the other hand, there are plenty of people out there still searching for something. Something to believe in. A place where they belong. And the Heaven’s Gate types can speak to this big secret no one wants you to know. I think that would be very appealing to someone who’s maybe drifting a little. Here’s someone telling you, ‘Oh yes. There’s more. And it’s not what everyone else thinks it is. You can be one of the chosen that gets to know the truth.’” “Pretty much,” Loshak said. “It’s the next part that makes less sense to me.” Darger rested her skull against the headrest. “When the followers have to prove that they’re worthy by renouncing all worldly possessions and agreeing to do everything their leader says. I mean, it makes sense to me in theory. I’ve seen people blindly follow something or someone enough times to know it happens. But on a personal level, I don’t understand it at all. When someone tells me what to do, no matter what it is, there’s a part of me that always thinks, ‘Fuck you, now I want to do the exact opposite.

Their governments are totally, philosophically opposed to each other.” “You’re preaching to the choir. Nothing we think we know is holding true anymore. But this is what’s happening.

We are also the only lawyer in the courtroom striving for the justice of a rightful conviction. It is a matter of ethics to zealously represent your client. This requires the prosecutor to use every strategy in our arsenal, to exercise our best efforts at trial, within the bounds of the law and ethics, to bring about a conviction. The desire to convict is not unethical when it is founded on your considered judgment, and good faith belief, that a conviction is supported by the evidence. And I know I’m preaching to the choir, and that you all know all this, but I think it’s worth reminding ourselves every now and then, that what we do when we secure a conviction of someone who has broken the law is a quintessentially ethical thing”. Anne Grady, Richmond County N.Y. A.D.A -2011 Dewey Award Winner

We are also the only lawyer in the courtroom striving for the justice of a rightful conviction. It is a matter of ethics to zealously represent your client, which is justice. This requires the prosecutor to use every strategy in our arsenal, to exercise our best efforts at trial, within the bounds of the law and ethics, to bring about a conviction. The desire to convict is not unethical when it is founded on your considered judgment, and good faith belief, that a conviction is supported by the evidence. And I know I’m preaching to the choir, and that you all know all this, but I think it’s worth reminding ourselves every now and then, that what we do when we secure a conviction of someone who has broken the law is a quintessentially ethical thing”. Anne Grady, Assistant District Attorney 2011 Dewey Award Winner Richmond County New York

THEY COULD NOT BE BOTHERED TO SAVE LIVES. The GOP would rather piss on the ashes of six hundred thousand people than lift a reasonable finger to do anything to stop them from being harmed. If that doesn’t tell you all you need to know about the GOP, well, I don’t know what to say. (I know I’m preaching to the choir here, most likely. But sometimes it’s good to hear someone else say what you’re thinking. It helps you to triangulate yourself.)

Western knowledge producers or those using Western voices in their knowledge production should ask themselves a few questions: Where do Palestinians fit in this work? Do they have any agency, or are they a tool to drive the point across? Are my filmmaking practices extractive? How can I practice responsible authorship? Have I instilled in my project enough cues to incentivize my audience to consume it critically, or am I patting myself on the back? Am I doing the challenging chore of speaking to my bigoted, acrimonious community, accosting my Zionist aunt at the dinner table, or am I preaching—pandering, really—to the choir? Did I really have to go and “see for myself,” or did I ignore a century of Palestinian literature? Am I cognizant of how that refusal to engage local and grassroots knowledge production continues to undermine its value on the world stage, undermining also the value and authority of Palestinian narration? Do I have a class analysis in my work? Do I acknowledge that I get awards for saying similar things to what the student movement has been criminalized, suspended, and censured for saying? Do I name my institutional backing? What are the material and monetary conditions of those whose voices I amplify? Am I only referencing dead guys? What does my works cited page look like?