His Church, Her Church, Their Church, MY Church.

This idea of "the church" is something that I have been thinking about a lot, and encountering a lot over the last couple of weeks between my tour of churches for school and my journey to CCV out in Arizona.

Something that is part of my grade for the class I am taking is comparing all of the different churches and how they do ministry. The thing is... I think that's the very problem that we all have. We are so quick to speak of the many differences that we all have, that it ends up being what is more important. It kills me how divisive the "church" is. You are now part of the _________ denomination. They don't really believe the same as __________ denomination, and you definitely want to stay away from the ________ denomination. If you really don't know what to do, then you become non-denominational... um... which is by very nature a denomination.

I want to tell you about a moment I had tonight that was quite profound that brought this up:



We are on a retreat at CCV with the "family ministry" division which includes children's ministry, youth ministry and youth sports ministry. There is about 50 of us that came out to this GORGEOUS camp called Lost Canyon about 30 minutes from the Grand Canyon. Tonight during our group session three of the staff members were given the opportunity to give their testimonies, and then we worshiped for a little. As they were telling their story, I couldn't stop thinking... "wow... they are just like me." They are also just like many of my talented and broken friends and family from back home. We are so quick to say you are from that church, and I am from this church. "You do it that way, but we do it that way."

You know what... we are truly forgetting to say, We're all from THE church. God intended for one church, THE church to worship him and honor him. I think this is an idea we need to use to our advantage instead of to create division.

Not to be morbid... but it's almost like the body of believers has thrown itself on to a grenade. There are different body parts scattered around, and they obviously are not going to be working together. The cool thing about this little problem is that it's not permanent. We are always able to come back together and start functioning with all of our parts intact with with Christ as our head.

We not only are one, but we are accountable to each other to top it off. One of the pastors who just asked me what I was doing gave me a great scripture to close out with... I want you to really think about this verse, and just like I will, think about what we're doing to bring the body together. As one giant army of God we can do some serious damage for the Kingdom... I mean SERIOUS.

Romans 12:5 - So in Christ we who are many form ONE body, and each member belongs to all the others.