T he Church

 Greetings to you all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

     Acts 2:46-47 says, “And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,  Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.”

     “How much do you need the church?”  Oh, wait a minute, “you are the church!”   There are a lot of buildings in most towns and cities that are referred to as a “church.”  Years ago, I looked at those buildings as “churches” and was trying for a long time to figure out which one was the right one for me to “go to church.”   The Lord Jesus Christ said He was going to build His church and so which one did He build?  Thus, we go on and on trying to figure out what is the church.

     We need to come to the point where we finally decide that the church is not a building but the people are the church.  The definition is a “called out gathering” of people.  We have been called out from the world to combine  together in an “assembly” of believers.  We often refer to local churches  adn there are a lot of them.  I looked in the phone book in 2005 for a church to go to in our city and found over 144 Baptist churches listed in the Roanoke Valley, plus 80 or so Methodist churches and 40 or so Presbyterian churches.  There were plenty of building from which to choose.  The above passage tells us how the first church began and how it functioned in those days.  The church was not the temple but those people who had been saved and we go on to see that God added to their number those that were being saved from day to day.  There is a cute saying that goes, “Seven days without prayer makes one weak.”  When we started going to a local church in Alexandria, Virginnia, there was a sign out front that said, “What’t Missing?   C  H __ __ C  H.      The answer is,U  R or You are the one that is missing.  It  is just a play on words, but the thought is there that the church is made up of believers from all corners of the globe.  The question as to how much do we need the church is  answered by the “ one another” commands as found in the Bible.  It is also good to notice that the early church “praised God and broke bread together.”  We can further notice that they were functioning in unity or as it says above, “in singleness of heart.”   We often demonstrate strong desires for various gatherings of people such as some sporting events where people will subject themselves to snow and rain just to watch two teams battle it out on the playing field but then not have a desire to come together in a comfortable building  with a coffee bar in the entrance, donuts in the classroom, padded pews and a sound system that makes the music clear and pleasant to listen to wherever you are sitting in the sanctuary.  We now gather in the buildings and refer to them as “going to church” when in reality “we” are the church.  The church is still being built from day to day adn someday soon, the last soul will be added.  Praise God today for the “Body of Christ.”