What Is A Church?: [1] A Body

My friend asked me once, "What is church for? Can you be a Christian and not go to church?" and when I had told her that you should ask your church about helping you solve some of your troubles, she replied in shock, "Wait, you can do that in church?!"

I guess it really reminded me about the misconceptions (the wrong views) people have about what church is about. And I think, in particular, everyone in our youth group has experienced church changes, splits, break-ups, and (just last year) unions. We've all grown up in churches, probably have been going to church for as long as we can remember, and have been told that going to church is the good thing.

But what is church? What do you do at church? What is it for? Can you be a Christian and not go to church? Can you not be a Christian and go to church? - Read More -

I, in my very limited wisdom, will try to answer these questions, and I'll try to make my answer short (but it'll be super long). Thus, this won't cover everything. This is a very large topic so if you want to know more, there are also many many MANY books that try to answer these questions too, such as:

1. Stop Dating the Church!: Fall in Love with the Family of God, by Joshua Harris
2. The Purpose Driven Church, by Rick Warren
3. What is a Healthy Church, by Mark Dever

and more. Thing is that though all these books are Christian, they might not say the same thing. In fact, some might contradict each other. So above all, we should look, not at these books for knowledge, but look in the Bible, which should always remain our ultimate source of truth.

1 Corinthians 12 (as well as other places in the Bible) describes the church as a body.

¹²The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.

¹³For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

¹⁴Now the body is not made up of one part but of many.

²⁶If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

²⁷Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

I'm sure all of you have at one point read this passage or heard of it before, and I encourage you to read it again! :D

So a church can be compared to one body, and every person is united and a part of that body. So, what, David teacher is a hand? We're all the little fingers and toes? Maybe I'm the spleen. MSN (Pastor) Choi and Kim are the eyes and the mouth: they see all and say all! and Jesus, of course, is the brains, the mastermind!

But this means that we are all connected and we all depend on each other. Even toenails are important in helping you walk firmly and comfortably. And if you look at verse 26, when one suffers we all do, meaning the Body of Christ is more than just us going to church every Sunday, Bible Study, and playing DS with each other. This means that if one of us is going through a difficult time in his or her life, if someone is being mean and rude, if someone is struggling in school, if someone is sad because their dog passed away, if someone is slowing or fading in their faith, we, as one body, have to take care of each other and help one another out.

When you fall and trip and your knee bleeds, you're hand won't go, "Oh, that's just the knee, not me the hand. Whatever, I don't care. Just let the knee do whatever it wants!" and your head won't say, "Ah, whatever, it's just the knee that hurts. This doesn't affect me. It can take care of itself!" No, your head says, "OWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!That HURT! OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW, HAND GO HELP KNEE!" and the hand goes, "OWWWWW!!! That's so painful I feel like it's hurting me too! Okay Head, I'll go get Neosporin and a bandaid!"

In the same way, when one of us is feeling down or needs help, we can't just ignore it. It affects us too. Also, Jesus so completely and fully knows and understands the pain they're feeling just like the head.

Jesus as the head of the body is something to really take note of. This means that Jesus is the one we go to for direction. When the head says, lift up your hand and high five someone, the hand does so. And so we must follow the commands of the head, of Jesus, who will only command us to do what is good for us, for the body. For what kind of head wants His body to ignore Him and harm itself?