What Is the Church?
What is the church? I can tell you what it has been for me. I attended a non-denominational Vineyard church for about 15 years. Now I attend a First United Methodist church. I've found these churches to be very accepting places where I could experience community. Community is in short supply in our society these days. A good church is a place where you become known and loved - really loved despite all your flaws and failures. But it is more than that. It is the body of Jesus on Earth. As such, it is made up of its members, each with their own unique calling. The bible paints the picture like this. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12, " Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the