What Is The Church?

Let me start by what the church is NOT…

The church is not a large building where massive groups of people meet to hear a sermon over coffee, nor is it a small chapel where a smaller group of people meet to hear a sermon in a pew.

I Corinthians 12:12 “For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also [is] Christ.”

Samantha Williams
The church is a living breathing organism otherwise known as the body of Christ. That body is made up of many individuals who lay down their status as an individual at the cross. This cannot be laid down at the door of a building and picked back up at the end of a rousing emotional sermon. This is a continual work of the cross. We lay our lives down for our friends.

John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”

We pray together, we weep together, we laugh together, we bear each others burdens, we admonish each other, we bear with each other, and we grow in the knowledge of Christ TOGETHER.

Galatians 6:2 “Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

John 13:35 “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

I Peter 3:8-9 “Finally, all [of you be] of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, tenderhearted, courteous; not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing.”

This kind of love cannot be expressed in a twice per week succession of programs. This kind of love must be an encompassing love where we are compassionate toward each other, setting aside ourselves and searching for ways to serve every day.

If you and/or your “church” do not look like the living body of Christ, I urge you, brothers and sisters, to either get out or start a revolution of reformation. Make your dead gathering a living organism. It can start with you. Repent of your self-seeking ways and learn to love one another.

Samantha Williams