Dear Small Church Congregation,
I have one of those “duh” questions for you—Who makes up the body of Christ? Your first inclination might be to say—the church. And you would be correct. But who or what constitutes the church? Who or what is identifiable as belonging to the church? (Keep in mind that I am not referring to a building.)
If Jesus is building His church, then the who or what makes up His church would be someone/something He brings into existence. That means people are not the ones who create the church. My science teacher long ago showed me that people can manipulate matter, but people cannot create matter out of nothing. Since we cannot create something out of nothing, like God can do, then we cannot claim to be the ones who create or own the church. (Letter #52)
We are told in scriptures that the body of Christ has many members and that each member has its place and usefulness in the body, just like our physical bodies are made up of many parts that are all quite important to the overall function of the physical body. But these members are not brought into existence by people. They are created and placed into His body by Jesus as He puts His body together, as He builds it.
If Jesus is putting His body, His church, together and placing the individual members where He wants them to be and giving them their functions inside His body, it would be Jesus who is empowering those members to perform their functions in His body. He would be the one who decides what their functions would be and how they would operate within His church.
(Bear with me. I’m going somewhere with this basic stuff.)
People generally consider anyone who places his/her eternal future into the hands of Jesus by believing He is Messiah and Redeemer of mankind, asks for forgiveness for sins and strives to live according to Jesus’s teachings to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. These individuals have been born again spiritually through their faith in Jesus and have publicly declared their allegiance to Jesus. They would then be considered a member of Christ’s church, His body.
This whole process of believing, having faith, being born again spiritually, etc. is something Jesus accomplishes in individuals so they can become part of His body. If you are a disciple of Christ, this process has occurred in your life. You are now a member of the church Jesus is building.
When a person says he/she is a member of a particular church that belongs to a particular denomination or fellowship, the membership is a concept we mortals have developed to indicate where the people attend worship services and the organizational structure with which the people identify. That kind of church membership is man-made. It is created by people to group or classify people according to doctrines and traditions developed since the creation of the original group of disciples, a group which was chosen by Jesus Himself.
Humans, being what we are with all our preferences and fallacies, have a tendency to identify ourselves as belonging to that man-made church system, rather than to the church Jesus is building, to the body of Christ. When this happens, when we say, “I belong to __________ Church,” we put our membership focus on the man-made church system, and not on the universal spiritual church (ekklesia = assembly; called out ones) Jesus owns. We have an inclination to become faithful to and promoters of that physical group in which we call ourselves members instead of the spiritual body into which we are placed when we were born again spiritually.
There is absolutely nothing amiss in belonging to a particular group of disciples. I encourage anyone who has faith in Jesus to seek out and connect with a local group of Jesus’s followers who regularly worship together. I also recommend you read a little book by Thom Rainer entitled I Am a Church Member. It speaks to belonging to a local body of believers.
However, please, please do not become so wrapped up in your local church that you forget that it is a small part of the very large church Jesus is building. His church is made up of many millions of disciples who gather in homes, in small and large buildings, under trees, along meadows and sitting on rocks around the world. His church, His body, is His creation. Remember where your church membership really lies. Please remember you are a part of the body of Christ.
Sincerely,
A Small Church Pastor