A Place Called Church

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the church. What it means to me, what it means to other people, and how it is defined in the Bible. I first really experienced the church about four years ago when I first went to a youth group at the church I now attend. God touched my heart that day, and I was exposed to His love and mercy. Some people (at least kids my age, or in my school) see church as boring and dull! Some people see the church as judgmental, a place where people will spit on you if you go there (sounds gross). Some people believe that they have to “clean house”, and put on a fake smile and pretend everything’s fine. Well here’s what the Bible says about church. In the book 1 Corinthians, Paul talks a lot about the church. In chapter three he tells us there are not to be divisions in the church (the Corinthians had a problem with following different people they were baptized by). In chapter 12 we “are the body of Christ) 1 Corinthians 12: 27. Now who is we? One church, group of churches, the world, one country? The “we” is the church as a whole. This may be surprising (I kind of like to surprise people), the church is not the building down the street, or even the people down the street, it is every believer in the world. We are the church. The building is not the church; it is the people, the body of believers. We are the body of Christ, His hands and feet on earth. It does not matter whether you are Methodist, Presbyterian, Catholic, or Baptist. All that matters is we all believe in God, and our savior Jesus. We are not to divide the church, but unify it. So taking that in, we can get a picture of what the church is, not a building, not guy that gives a sermon, but us as a body of believers. Isn’t it cool that we can say to ourselves that we are unified with people all the way across the world, that we know we are all one family of God’s children? That’s what church is.