It's getting like church up in here, we're going to have to take up a collection.

St. Patrick's Day is a religious holiday in Ireland. The first thing you do is go to church.

The loss of connection between churches and neighborhoods creates a corresponding loss of localized imagination and creates an addictive-like dependence on acontextual experts who scan the physical and spiritual horizon for 'success.

Spring came late. For the children, shut in the dark, cold parsonage, adjusting to Aunt and getting over the death that brought her, the winter had seemed endless. But now the rough moor was flecked with racing cloud shadows; the maltreated holly tree had stopped weeping; the green mould on the graves had dried to an unsuggestive grey.

The church could never look cheerful. It was too black, and its voice, the bell, always said 'Fu - ner -al... fu - ner- al...' even when it was only calling them to hear one of their Papa's dramatic sermons.

In post-Christendom, the church is that community of people who look to discover what God is actively doing in the world around them and then join themselves to that work. The church is that community of people gathered around Jesus Christ in order to participate in his life and incarnate it into the context where he has placed them.

Look at the truth, that's what you should be fighting for.