The full power of forgiveness, of the laying on of hands, and of prayer dwells only in the purified community of the church. God wants to gather a pure people, fully consecrated to his kingdom. There cannot, therefore, be any prayer life for an individual who is interested only in himself and his emotions. The great throng of people gathered for the kingdom is united in prayer for forgiveness; they are profoundly in earnest in the knowledge of their own smallness and complete change of heart. They all pray for the welfare of the city, for they feel it to be their own welfare.

- Eberhard Arnold

The Christ for whom you have waited and longed has found you and taken you by the hand. His Spirit has overpowered you and taken you under his leadership. What a joy for you and all those who love you! May the shining spirit of Jesus Christ bring to your heart ever anew the living word of truth.

- Eberhard Arnold

The good human urge is only capable of realizing community and justice if in its deepest depths it allows itself to be overpowered and ruled by God’s urge, by the impulse of his Holy Spirit, by Christ who becomes man, so that God’s kingdom, Christ’s kingdom may come! In our humanness we lack the right expectation of what is to come, in the sense that it is from God, from the other world, from the powers of the future, that the kingdom of justice must and will burst in upon us – not through the efforts of good people.

- Eberhard Arnold