With all this talk lately about “church” and “emerging church” and “cell church” I thought I would archive this from one of John Chrysostom’s sermons on the Book of Acts (Homily XXIX).
Think you that to be religious is to be constant in Church-going? This is nothing, unless we reap some fruit for ourselves: if (from gathering together in Church) we do not gather something for ourselves, it were better to remain at home. For our forefathers built the Churches for us, not just to bring us together from our private houses and show us one to another: since this could have been done also in a market-place, and in baths, and in a public procession:–but to bring together learners and teachers, and make the one better by means of the other. With us it has all become mere customary routine, and formal discharge of a duty: a thing we are used to; that is all. Easter comes, and then great the stir, great the hubbub, and crowding of–I had rather not call them human beings, for their behaviour is not commonly human. Easter goes, the tumult abates, but then the quiet which succeeds is again fruitless of good. “Vigils, and holy hymn-singing.”– And what is got by these? Nay, it is all the worse. Many do so merely out of vanity.
People change, but not that much. Sermons change, but not that much.
Mind your Maker 