We really need the local church

Josh Harris gave this great reminder on his blog today.

Why We Really Need the Local Church

Is belonging to a church really just a formality? When asked what church she belonged to, one Sunday-morning visitor told a pastor, "The universal body of Christ."

Technically, she may be right. As we saw in the last chapter, every authentic Christian does belong to Christ--and that's wonderful! But is it either wise or right for a person to be linked spiritually to the universal Church yet have no connection to a local church? Is it even possible?

Wouldn't that be like telling your new bride that while your love is true, you have other priorities? Your heart of course is all hers, but as for the rest of you...well, you'll be in and out.

I propose that for sincere followers of Christ, the Bible allows no such disconnect. If you and I identify with and love the idea of church, we must consider how we can identify with and love an actual church.

A local church is a visible, tangible, real-world expression of the body of Christ. "Of course every believer is part of the universal church," writes Chuck Colson. "But for any Christian who has a choice in the matter, failure to cleave to a particular church is failure to obey Christ."

Charles Spurgeon agreed that for a Christian failure to join a church is disobedience. He combined piercing truth and humor when he compared such disconnected Christians to "good-for-nothing" bricks:

I know there are some who say, "Well, I have given myself to the Lord, but I do not intend to give myself to the church."

Now why not?

"Because I can be a Christian without it."

Are you quite clear about that? You can be as good a Christian by disobedience to your Lord's commands as be being obedient?

What is a brick made for? To help build a house. It is of no use for that brick to tell you that it is just as good a brick while it is kicking about on the ground as it would be in the house. It is a good-for-nothing brick.

So you rolling-stone Christians, I do not believe that you are answering your purpose. You are living contrary to the life which Christ would have you live, and you are much to blame for the injury you do.

Only by joining a local church can Christians avoid "kicking about on the ground" like a brick. It's in the local church that we are attached to God's work around the world.

Authors Brian Habig and Les Newsom, in The Enduring Community, make a helpful recommendation. Borrowing from the bumper sticker, they recommend that Christians should "Think globally, love locally." "All of us should concern ourselves with the challenges that face all people everywhere," they write. "But that concern cannot be expressed everywhere. We demonstrate our concern by acting and living where we are."

We see this combination of a global mindset with a local focus throughout the New Testament. The apostles weren't just caught up with the universal Church--they were busy planting and caring for individual local churches. Most of their epistles were written to specific churches in cities like Galatia, Ephesus, Corinth, and Philippi. Almost every time the word church appears in the New Testament it means a particular gathering of Christians.

They saw the big picture, but they understood that you could never separate God's big-picture plan from everyday service and involvement with people.

Excerpted from Stop Dating the Church.