We are Christians, you and I, one spiritual race, knit together in ways on which we seldom even reflect. It doesn?t matter that some of us live over there and some of us live over here. Things have happened in my life and ministry over the past couple of years that have really caused me to hunger for and to love the Church, as I understand it to exist in the mind of God. The horrific events of last Tuesday do not compel me to abandon topic, for we are knit together with Christians who are suffering because of those events in ways on which we seldom reflect. In fact, we are knit together with Christians who lost their lives in ways on which we seldom reflect. Whether we live in Lancaster, Washington, New York or Heaven, we are the Church.

I am greatly distressed these days by the animosity of some people, even professed believers in Jesus, toward His church. The church is under attack, not only by its enemies, but sometimes, by its professed members. Today, we all know people who claim to love Jesus, but they make a point of their disinterest in His church. "I don?t need church! I worship God, privately, in my own way." They are more than wrong. Is heresy too harsh of a word to use before lunch? Living out Christianity in isolation is not Bible truth. And all we really know about the church is Bible.

There is another way in which I see the church under attack by its own, almost as if it were cannibalizing itself. For as long as I can remember, there have been movements within the church to bring it up to date, to make it more attractive to the current generation. Some of these movements make great strides and enable the church to impact its culture in greater ways.

Unfortunately, many attempts simply cause hard feelings. Is there a way to accomplish the mission of ministry in the modern age that doesn?t somehow come across as a veiled (and often, not so veiled) protest against the church as it exists right now? Is there a way that does not demand that we drive wedges? I think that if we truly want God to bless our efforts in such a way that what we build survives us and bears fruit, then, we must operate under the premise that there is such a way. God loves His church. Jesus calls His Bride to unity. There must be a way.

My thoughts today are not really so much about defining that way to be progressive without divisive, but in a way, they contribute to that goal. We need to be better rooted in what the church is, how she exists in the mind of God and how little difference our little passions and opinions really make in the grander scheme of things. There is something very majestic about the church that is bigger than any one person?s opinions or points of view. What is the Church? Let us look at two Greek words that we translate into the English, "Church."

I. The First Word Is Ecclesia. This is the word for church used throughout the New Testament. It is a compound word. From the prefix ek, we get our word "exit". If you see the word "exit" over a door, it tells you that this is the way out. Ek means out. The latter part of the word is from the verb, kaleo, which means "to call or summon". Ecclesia meant an assembly or a "called out gathering." A "calling" can also connote a life?s vocation. If you are part of God?s "called out", His church, it means that you are summoned out of the world to be part of God?s assembly. But, it also means that you are called out of the world, into a new destiny, that is, out of sin and into God?s holiness.

A. We call our buildings churches. We know they are not really the church, but there is still something very natural about calling them churches. Jesus told a Samaritan woman that a time would come when believers would worship "in spirit and in truth." Her people believed that God lived at Mt. Gerazim, and the Jews believed that He lived in the temple at Jerusalem. Jesus taught her that God is not bound by any building. But having said that, we cannot deny that we are drawn to places of worship where we sense a "leaving of the world" so that we might interact with a holy God. In some respects, there is nothing wrong with calling our buildings, "churches."

B. This very word that defines us as being the church demands that we are not the world. The greatest tensions in our churches today revolve around methodologies and styles. One factor in these debates is very noble. There is, on the one hand, an authentically evangelistic passion to win the world for Jesus that desires to be as current and relevant as possible. There is, on the other hand, an almost heretical tendency to despise and to grow very negative about our link to the historical church. So, we become like the world, just so that we can measure our success.

Throughout history, the church has experimented many times with becoming more like the world in its methods. Who has won in regard to affecting the other? Let us say, for the sake of argument that this attempt has occurred 500 times in history. The score is World-500, Church-0. Without exception, the church has always come up on the short end of that game. Our message must always be the cross of Jesus Christ unto salvation. We must proclaim it in the language of our age. In that respect, we want to be as culturally relevant and sensitive as we can.

However, make no mistake about it, the cross is our message, and there is a sense in which the cross can never be culturally relevant. The cross is the bridge out of the world and into God?s family. It was foolishness and a stumbling block in the cultures of the first century. It can be no more palatable to the various cultures of this age. There is a point where we can become so sensitive to the seekers? ignorance of the institutions of the church, his taste in music and his five-minute attention span that we forget that the Holy Spirit also has a role in bringing him to Jesus. If we don?t win people with the message of the cross, we haven?t really won them at all.

I. The Second Word Is Kuriake. This word is never actually translated church in the New Testament, but it is the word from which English and several other languages derive the word, church. It is the adjective form of the noun, kurios, which means "lord." It means something that belongs to a lord. The church is something that by its very name, is the Lord?s possession.

A. The church is the Lord?s possession in that it is His body. The Corinthian Christians were a divided people. Different camps had favorite teachers and rather than appreciate each of those men, they lined up behind those teachers and pulled apart from one another. They were divided over their spiritual gifts. Those who possessed the miraculous sign gifts exalted themselves over others who had more practical, but less spectacular gifts. They could not grasp that each and every gift (like each and every authentic teacher) needed to be honored, because each gift (like each authentic teacher) made them more complete as a church. To this mentality of divisiveness, Paul wrote that great passage on the body:

After Paul explains the importance of the contribution of every person? gift, he continues ?

Through the church, Christ ministers to the world. Through the church, Christ ministers to His people. Through the church, the holy character of Jesus is communicated to the world and the invitation of Jesus to salvation is extended. You may have a favorite teacher, leader or personality in the church. But if that preference causes you to think less of some other teacher, leader or personality, then you are not really honoring that person at all. If a gift you wield causes you to think less of any other person somehow gifted differently, then, shame on you. None of these gifts, teachers, leaders or personalities are yours. They are the Lord?s. That?s what church means. These things are only yours in the sense that they are a part of the same organism of which you are also a part, one Body, the Possessor of which is Jesus.

B. The Church is the Lord?s possession in that it is His household. Tomorrow, in our own churches, we will come to the Table of Remembrance to recognize the Body of Christ. Yes, that does means the physical body that was broken to secure our forgiveness. But there is a double image involved here. It also refers the Body of Jesus, the community of believers that belongs to Him, His church ? not just the local church, but the church universal and eternal. To share the communion service with Jesus is to share it with Him in God?s kingdom.

One great hymn of the church captures what happens with these remarkable lyrics:

In the Lord?s Supper we recognize a mystical union between ourselves and all who belong to Jesus, brothers and sisters 30 miles down the road, brothers and sisters around the world, brothers and sisters who have gone to the Father, throughout all the ages. This is what worship accomplishes that we seldom recognize:

C. The Church is the Lord?s possession in that it is His Bride. The P.C. crowd today would be hysterical, and I would never expect them to understand this in the first place, but a bride among the ancient Jews was a very valuable possession - so valuable that a prospective bridegroom had to pay a high cost to the bride?s father. In some instances, this price was as high as the cost of a house. This was to demonstrate that he was a responsible provider and that he could support His wife. We are not our own. We were purchased at a price by Someone Who can support us and support us mightily for all of eternity.

We are His possession. We are His people. We are His Body. We are His Bride. We are His church.

© by R. Karl Crouch, 551 Abbeyville Road, Lancaster, PA 17603