The Church

I originally posted this article last July. I really would like for you to consider the issues that are raised in this article and comment at will.

"During our discussion time, I brought up an interesting point concerning why people don't like church or Christianity. Now we all know that there are people in the world who claim that they do not believe in God, yet at the same time we see that they actually do believe in a god, whether that god is in some religion or in themselves. Looking out over our generation it's easy to see many who are disillusioned with the church. Why? Well, I think it isn't so much that they do not believe in God but that they have a hard time believing in the Church. Just ask someone you know that used to attend church why they stopped. Most of the time they are going to tell you a story of how someone from the church wronged them or they discovered hypocrisy in the church. It takes a lot of faith to believe in the church does it not? One of the most historic creeds of the church is the Apostle's Creed. This creed was used to summarize the message of the Bible, the Gospel. This Creed was very important; it was so important that people had to recite it at baptism. There is a phrase at the end of the creed that usually gets overlooked or gives people the heeby geebies because of their association with the terminology. The Creed begins with 'I believe,' so everything that comes after that is prefixed with 'I believe.' The last section of the Creed states 'I believe...in the holy catholic church.' Did you hear that? They had to state that they believe in the church! Now here is my disclaimer, 'catholic' is definitely not referring to the Roman Catholic church, rather it is meaning 'universal church.'
Now I want you to know that by no means am I seeking to bash the church, the beautiful bride of Christ. Rather I love her and want to see her become more beautiful. I do recognize that I am counted among that number in the bride of Christ, and I love her. Therefore, I want to call her to that attention. When we ask the question 'Who is God?' we are not going to find an exhaustive answer, but rather we are quickly going to find out more about ourselves. We are the church, the called out ones from every tongue and tribe and nation, all over the world. We are called to literally be the body of Christ. Do you get that? We are His body here on earth and He is our head. He moves us, His body parts, by telling us what to do and how to conduct ourselves through His Word and His Spirit. So how are you doing? Are living out the call on your life? Can people around you say, 'Yes, that guy/girl is definitely part of the church?"